I hadn’t visited the Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for about a decade. It has had some major work done in that period and now looks even more like it did on the day of Soane’s death in 1837.
At least two regular readers here will be blushing modestly at this point. Gifford and Sophie’s mother are both generous donors to the £7 million project. It is free to visit the museum but I strongly recommend splashing out on a guided tour. Our guide made an hour seem much too short. He shared his knowledge and enthusiasm with us infectiously. Moreover, on a tour you see parts of the museum not open to visitors who just walk in.
One of the upstairs rooms has an early bath with a mahogany lid. (There was a similar one at Barmeath.) In November 1836, about two months before he died, Soane placed a lot of things in the bath and declared that the lid was not to be lifted for exactly sixty years and then in the presence of a lawyer. This aroused much speculation and excitement. In 1896 the bath was opened and to the consternation of the distinguished witnesses was full of items like false teeth and knitting needles. It is open to debate whether he was an eccentric playing a practical joke or if he had gone a bit bonkers.
There are pictures by Joshua Reynolds, Canaletto, Turner and Hogarth, including of course The Rake’s Progress, but that is only a small part of the attraction of the museum. The Model Room and his collection of ancient artifacts as well as the buildings themselves are what make it so rewarding to visit. You can even hire it for a private party in the evening.
Soane’s architectural signature is domes. In the museum they are everywhere and also in his buildings, like the Bank of England. They inspired Gibert Scott’s design for the original red ‘phone boxes in the 1920s. These proved expensive to make and unnecessarily large so in the 1930s were replaced with his slimmed down version. Here is the difference, with Adrian standing in front for scale and decoration.
For ‘phone box nerds, on the left is the original K2 (K stands for kiosk) and on the right the more familiar K6. I am only sorry that I haven’t included a dog in the picture – a canine.
I prefer the K2! I wonder if there are many still about.
The K2 was only placed in London and the K6 across the country. I took the picture in Carey Street, not far from Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where there are two K2s.