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Keats House - 18/07/01
Now an international tourist destination, Keats House was built between 1814 and 1816 and the poet John Keats (1795-1821) lodged there with his friend Charles Armitage Brown from 1818 to 1820. Keats wrote some of his best-known poems in the house including Ode to a Nightingale, which he is said to have composed while sitting written under a plum tree in the garden.
Keats House is listed Grade I and the garden is listed in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Originally known as Wentworth Place, it was built as a pair of semi-detached houses with a shared garden.
While Keats lived there, he fell in love with Fanny Brawne who lived in the next door house and some commentators say that this affair led to some of his best poetry. They became engaged to marry, but fate cruelly intervened. Keats had tuberculosis and moved to the warmer climate of Italy where he died in Rome in 1821 at the tragically premature age of 25.
There are exhibitions and displays in the basement and on the first floor. The Keats House Collections contain an extensive collection of Keats artefacts, manuscripts and letters. Items include Keats' inkstand, the engagement ring he gave to Fanny and, on a more macabre note, his life and death masks. The collection also includes documents, prints and paintings relating to Keats' circle and the English Romantic movement.
In 1839, the two houses were joined, though the exterior of the house was little changed. the house was opened a as museum in 1925 after it had been saved from the therat of demolition.
Location: Keats Grove, Hampstead, London NW3
Summer opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 12pm - 5pm. Closed Mondays
Group visits can be booked between 10am and 12am Tuesday to Saturday
Admission: Adults £3.00, concessions £1.50, children under 16 free
Entrance to the garden is free during opening hours.
Access to the collections is by appointment only - please call 020 7435 2062 for further details |
Hampstead
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