My Guilty Secret - London Trivia #4

Photo courtesy of Cheezburger.com

I have a guilty secret - I quite like watching 'Bargain Hunt' - (for my US friends, this is a daytime TV show where generally clueless couples buy trash from antique fairs with the aim of selling it at auction for profit. The couple that makes the most profit, or smallest loss, wins!) Hosted by the epitome of an English gentleman, Tim Wannocott, halfway through the show Tim visits a place of historical interest and on the occasion that inspired this post, he visited the Sir John Soanes museum London.

Tim Wonnacott - photo courtesy of the BBC.

Sir John Soanes was the Georgian architect who designed the Bank of England, amongst other notable buildings. But what sparked my interest during Tim's segment, was the sheer eccentricity of Soanes home - which also doubled as a museum in his lifetime. Soanes was a collector of architectural artefacts and filled his house with antique marble fragments of statues and friezes, mainly from ancient Rome. From the glimpse I got on the TV it looked too interesting to miss and living close to London I went to visit.

Soanes Museum - the cream coloured building to the left of the picture.

Soanes Museum is at 12 - 14 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London and entry is free!
Greek and Roman marbles line the stairwells, a full sized Egyptian sarcophagus in the basement, a room of Hogarth's mounted on hinged walls. In the basement, Soanes created an atmosphere reminiscent of catacombs or Roman burial chamber, of which the centre piece was the magnificent Egyptian sarcophagus of King Seti I; bought by Soanes when the British Museum refused to pay 2,000 pounds for it. With hieroglyphics as yet deciphered in his time, and a very important antiquity, Soanes celebrated the arrival of his new piece with three evening parties, illuminated by three hundred oil lamps and attended by nearly a thousand people.



The Bank of England - designed by Sir John Soanes.

Mrs Soanes must have had the patience of a saint to put up with the stamp of her husband's overwhelming personality, but by all accounts they were a happy couple. A mark of Soanes' eccentricity was his 'Monk's Parlour.' This was a downstairs room designed in a gothic fashion, with dark sombre colours and heavy furniture to illustrate the importance of light (or lack of it) in creating atmosphere. What is even more delightful is that when Soanes wanted to be alone he would claim:
"Padre Giovanni has come to visit," and disappear into the Monk's Parlour to take tea. However since Padre Giovanni was fictitious, actually a play on Soanes' own name 'John' - his visits were an excuse to enjoy solitude.

The sarcophogus in Soanes house - and yes it is as mad as this!

 I've gone a long way round the houses to say I'm proud that my 'guilty secret' inspired a visit to a place I hadn’t heard of before- and I feel less guilty as a result!

Have you ever visited somewhere you saw on TV and were blown away by the experience?

Do leave a comment and join the conversation!

Portraits of Sir John Soanes by Sir Frances Chantry.