Londoners Magazine

There is only so much the well-trodden museum mile can offer. Lydia Mossahebi breaks free from the stream of tourists and discovers what eccentricities are hidden within Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn.

Sir John Soane museum

Architect of the Bank of England, Sir John Soane, turned his home into a museum for his obsessive collection of statues, artwork and books. The museum is now a time-capsule; kept the way Sir John left it, so visitors can wander round the house and discover its wealth of curiosities. Sir John moved himself and his family into no.12 in 1792; he went on to buy and develop the two adjoining buildings to accommodate his collection, making the three houses into his own house museum. He left the museum with the intention that could be freely accessed by students and amateurs of architecture, painting and sculpture.

The museum is now a cornucopia of historical antiquities. Spread across the three buildings, the house is not defined by conventional rooms; corridors square round dome areas and lead down mirrored passages. Beth Kingston, education officer, explains the allure of the museum: “It is the finest example of a house museum, probably, in the world. It’s special because people can come and discover the place themselves by walking around. There is not a huge amount of interpretation either, so people can interpret it themselves and every time they come back they can always discover something new.” Within the collection are Hogarth paintings, a large collection of neo-classical sculptures and 7,000 books, including a rarely exhibited second copy of Shakespeare’s folio.

You have to wait to enter the museum by the outside gates before being led in and signing the large ledger in the narrow hall. You are then allowed to explore the house yourself, with guides in each room to provide extensive historical context for each area. Walking into the dining room, it feels as if Sir John still lived there. The room is warm and invitingly dust-free with the walls filled with shelves of books. Sir John ensured an act of parliament that meant the house is maintained ‘as nearly as possible in the state in which he shall leave it.’

Dominating the ground floor is the colonnade and dome; its high arches rise up to the ceiling window allowing the room to be perfectly lit by daylight. Casts of Renaissance busts hold up shelves and walking round is treacherous since the narrow walkways are lined with cinerary urns. Adjacent to the colonnade is the picture gallery, where a hundred paintings are hidden inside a tiny room. Three walls are covered in Hogarth paintings, but wait for a crowd and the museum staff will show you more; two side walls are panels, and open out to reveal further paintings. One wall opens again to reveal Sir Richard Westmacott’s statue of a nymph, which sits on shelving outside the room.

Down in the basement is the crypt, where the Sarcophagus of Seti, dated to 1370BC, is on display. There is no artificial lighting in the museum, so daylight filters through windows, cloisters and courtyards to light up rooms. As dusk sets in, the crypt is lit by candlelight, adding to the haunting atmosphere. The guide explains the monk’s parlour and yard, next to the crypt, is a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of the gothic tradition. Enthusiastically, he points round the room with a torch, explaining how the room reflects Sir John’s depressed mind at the time. The dark walls and ceiling in the room are covered in stone gargoyles and casts of carvings from Westminster Cathedral. A skull sits in the middle of the dining table, as the only occupier of the room. The guide also explains how Sir John created his own legend of the monk, Padre Giovanni, whose was buried among the ruins of his monestry alongside his dog, Fanny. “Obviously,” the guide continues, “Padre Giovanni, was Sir John, as he perceived himself.” My friend and I murmured our agreement.

Visitor numbers are increasing at the museum, with 92,000 people visiting last year. But the museum is consciously avoiding being on the ‘Top ten things to do in London’ list. Beth Kingston explains: “The museum is so small that we have to have limited numbers. It is a hidden gem and we want to keep it that way. People who come here cite it as one of their favourites, and it inspires a lot of dedication. We don’t advertise and we don’t need to.”

The Royal College of Surgeons

A short walk through the park from Sir John Soane’s museum will lead you to The Royal College of Surgeons. Inside the reception, grab a visitor pass and walk up the stairs into the Hunterian museum. The collection is an array of the hideous, the grotesque and the deeply disturbing. John Hunter’s assortment was purchased by the Government and entrusted to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1799, and was later opened to the public in 1813. The museum begins with the history of the barber surgeons of the fifteenth century and explains how executed criminal’s bodies were used for apprentices to practice their craft on. It is clear that John Hunter found anatomy of humans and animals fascinating, although his passion might not be easily shared. The centre of the museum is the crystal gallery, which sounds more visually appealing than its contents. After a £3.2 million refurbishment, the Crystal Gallery is a space-age shelving enclosure; towering high, it is cleanly lit by tiny lights.

But against these beautiful star-lit cabinets and lilac carpets are jars of human body parts. In old jars with Latin names written in calligraphy, are pickled animals, foetuses and brains. As if in the horror film of a perverse scientist, the containers fill the shelves and include the dissected uterus of a pregnant woman. The crystal gallery alone holds 3,000 specimens that John Hunter collected and prepared himself. But the most disturbing part of the collection is the skeletons of three- and six-month-old foetuses. Jennie Gillions, a volunteer at the museum, says: “Children often get squeamish and so do some of the adults. They are OK with the animal stuff but not the human stuff. People find the foetuses the most upsetting part.” The gallery also has a large collection of partially dissected frogs and newts alongside brains of whales. Notably, the collection has the brain of mathematician Charles Babbage and Churchill’s dentures. The skeleton of Charles Byrne is on display; at over seven foot he was known as the ‘Irish giant’, and was a popular curiosity in London in the eighteenth century.

Behind the crystal gallery on the lower floor is the history of the museum and shows the damage done to the artefacts during the First World War. On the upper floor, the science of surgery gallery charts the history of surgery and surgical equipment. It has stereoscopic images of servicemen with facial injuries from the First World War. Looking into the green-lit pictures, the images are truly horrifying and test the strongest stomach. The museum also provides a study space, as Jenna Stevens, a volunteer at the museum, explains: “The biggest boom in numbers here is when it is revision time – a lot of students come here for work.” The Hunterian museum provides a fascinating insight into the history of surgery and how we came to understand anatomy, but, be warned, it should only be recommended to those with stomachs of steel.

Sir John Soane’s Museum
13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP
Tel: 02074052107 Open Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm. Entry is free. Candle-lit tours on the first Thursday of every month between 6-9pm.

Hunterian Museum
Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
London WC2A 3PE
Tel: 02078696560 Open Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm. Entry is free.

Images from top to bottom: The Sir John Soane Museum, the colonnade in the Sir John Soane Museum and The Crystal gallery in the Hunterian Museum