I love going to museums, galleries, and heritage sites, it’s a great way to learn about art, history, and culture. But I haven’t been to many houses that have been converted into museums. However, the last time I was in London, England, I was invited to visit two of them. Sambourne House and Leighton House are two wonderfully preserved Victorian homes that offer a glimpse into life of the past and depicts how the residence of these homes lived during the Victorian period in London, England. Although both homes illustrate daily life in this era, they are examples of very different homes, representing two different classes, two different households and the homes themselves have a very different style to them. Both homes are not far from each other and are located just off of Kensington High Street. They are also fine examples of houses belonging to artists.
Leighton House is locate at 12 Holland Park Road, London, W14 8LZ. It was owned by Fredric Leighton (1830-1896) who was a painter, sculptor and public figure. The home was first built in the 1860’s and was a studio-house intended to be used to live and work in but also to entertain. Inspired by his travels, much of the decoration and embellishments in the home draw inspiration from places like Spain, Italy, Turkey and Egypt to name a few. Leighton never married and lived in the house alone until 1896, when he died of heart failure.
Sambourne House is located at 18 Stafford Terrace, London W8 7BH and was owned by Edward Linley Sambourne (1844 - 1910) who was a cartoonist, illustrator and photographer. Unlike Leighton who came from a wealthy family, and lived as an upper class bachelor; Sambourne and his family were of the middle class. He lived in his home with his wife, two children and had several members of household staff. They moved into the house in 1875 and soon after, the home was decorated in the fashionable aesthetic style. The interior of the home features stained glass windows, Morris & Co. wallpapers, stylized natural motifs, as well as using muted earthy tones like green, brown and blue. The home stayed in the family for many years and was passed down to the Sambourne children, who preserved the interior of the home, for the most part, as their parents left it.
Walking through these homes really provides a complete picture of how these people lived. Being able to wander through these homes, seeing many of the rooms in the house including the bedrooms, bathrooms, sitting rooms, studio, and office/work spaces. You also get a sense of the people who lived there, their tastes, what they did in their spare time, and life at home for the artists. Both houses have very unique features that make them charming in their own way and is very different from how we live today.
Sambourne House has small simple bathrooms, but in the rest of the home there is pattern everywhere. Patterns adorning the carpets, geometric design on the tiled floors, ornate door handles, vases, wallpaper, and even on the ceiling, pattern is everywhere. Throughout the home there are lots of framed photos and artwork, from the hallways to the bedrooms and even a few framed photos in the bathrooms. There is much to look at in the drawing room, it is a lot to take in at once. Lots of mirrors, stained glass windows, furniture, interesting clocks and more. The den/studio where Sambourne worked, was a very dark, small space with an easel and a desk, but not much else. One of the things I was most drawn to, was the beautifully aged wallpaper that was embossed with a floral design and had gold leaf in it. Overall, this home was smaller and has a dark interior in comparison to the Leighton Home, but this may be intentional in order to preserve the items in the space by not exposing them to too much light.
Leighton House is in the wealthier part of town and is much grander. It has frescos in the floor at the base of the grand staircase and a peacock perched on the ledge near the bottom of these stairs. This space also features classical columns, bold blue coloured tiles on the walls, along with expensive textiles and furniture. The Arab Hall has a small indoor water feature in the middle of the floor and it’s clear that the design of this room was heavily influenced in Arab culture. It looks as though the room was taken right out of Turkey.
Upstairs, the silk room has a large skylight in the middle of the room and the walls are covered in a vibrant green silk fabric. A small collection of artwork (mostly paintings) adorn the walls around the fireplace. Compared to the rest of the house the bedroom is very basic and simple. The most interesting parts of the home includes the all glass rooftop studio that strongly resembles a greenhouse with a balcony. Inside the studio there are lots of easels and a few examples of drawings that Leighton has done. The spiral staircase is another beautiful feature of the home, it has a very abstract and surrealist feel to this part of the house, due to the way the stairs were designed along with the abstract and heavily textured walls. Leighton’s home also includes a large ceramic collection seen in different parts of the home.
In Both homes I noticed how the sunlight came into the space during the day, there was a lot of natural light that poured through the windows, skylights and the all glass studio of Leighton House and the stained glass windows of Sambourne House spilled multi coloured rainbows of light into parts of the house and illuminated the beautiful images featured on each window.
I very much enjoyed my visit to these two houses and spend a lot of time wandering around these places. There was so much to look at and take in. The guides in these homes are very friendly and knowledgeable about the history of the homes and the objects inside as well as the people who once occupied these houses. More information can be found online or by visiting these establishments in-person.
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