Taking kids somewhere where you have to walk round in
silence and you aren’t allowed to touch
anything doesn’t sound like a great idea, does it? But at Dennis Severs’ House
the fun is all inside your head.
Messy museum, 3D still life painting, historical drama
without actors, time capsule … ? Dennis Severs’ House is difficult to categorise.
This five-storey Georgian terrace in the East end of London was bought in 1979
by a Californian called (yes, you’ve guessed it) Dennis Severs. He moved in,
ripped out the electricity and all mod cons and set to work re-creating it as if
an imaginary 18th-century family was still living there: eating, sleeping,
breathing, playing, partying there. He even filled the chamber pots with real
wee.
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| by Roelof Bakker |
Today the house is owned by the Spitalfields Trust and the
chamber pots are empty, but other than that, it’s pretty much as Dennis Severs
arranged it.
“It wasn’t like ‘Ooh, guests are coming, we must make it clean and
tidy’,” said my daughter after our visit. “It was like the family had just popped out. And we were snooping
around, secretly.”
Which is exactly as Dennis Severs intended us to experience
it. As you approach, they depart, as you
depart, they re-enter says a sign.
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| by Roelof Bakker |
Evidence of the family’s ‘presence’ is everywhere: unmade
beds, half-drunk cups of tea, lit candles, bread toasting by the fire, piles of
dirty laundry, a tower of playing cards, reading glasses on an open bible, a nightshirt draped over a chair, ticking clocks, an apple core, shoes under
the bed, a stained recipe, washing lines of bloomers and corsetry hung in the stairwell ... And did I just hear a gentleman cough behind
me? Was that a horse and carriage passing by outside? And what’s that smell … is
it pineapple?
Little reminders here and there prod you to play detective, use
all your senses, absorb the atmosphere … In
this house it is not what you see, but what you have only just missed and are
being asked to imagine, says one. What?
You’re still looking at ‘things’ instead of what ‘things’ are doing? ribs another.
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| by Roelof Bakker |
The house is nevertheless a feast for the eyes. It is absolutely full
of things. Dennis Severs, an obsessive
collector from childhood, bought them for bargain prices from local markets – before
vintage became trendy. They suck you into the minutiae of the family’s lives
and lifestyle.
“The way the objects are all put together like that, you can
really feel how they lived,” said my daughter afterwards. “It's much better
than a museum.”
Her favourite bit was the attic, set up as if it was rented
out to a much poorer family. The contrast was striking: a threadbare armchair,
filthy pillows, peeling walls, broken floorboards, holes in the ceiling, and
the noise of the wind howling outside, rain dripping on the roof.
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| by Roelof Bakker |
“It was like
in A Little Princess when she suddenly
goes from rich girl to servant and is sent to sleep in the attic with the rats,”
she said.
I was especially fascinated by the ‘order of duties’ pinned
up on the wall for the domestic servants. After lighting the fire, they were
instructed to ‘Allow one quarter of an
hour for dust to settle which time is to be employed elsewhere.’ I was suddenly overwhelmed by gratefulness for central
heating, hoovers and Cillit Bang.
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| by Roelof Bakker |
In the enforced silence, my daughter became expert at mime
and precise pointing to communicate with me. But she told me afterwards that
she didn’t mind having to be quiet.
“Because instead of saying ‘Look, mummy, look, there’s a dead rabbit on the kitchen table’, I had to keep it in my head and if you keep it in your head you think about it more. Your imagination makes it real."
“Because instead of saying ‘Look, mummy, look, there’s a dead rabbit on the kitchen table’, I had to keep it in my head and if you keep it in your head you think about it more. Your imagination makes it real."
“So how would you fancy living in the 18th century?”
I ask her.
“I’d hate it because it’s be so cold and dark and dusty and
grubby and you don’t get proper duvets. I wouldn’t be able to put up with all
that grub,” she says, pulling a face.
“And I think I’d be bored. I’d probably have to spend all day playing cards.”
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| by Roelof Bakker |
Dennis Severs, however, chose to live in the house the rest of his life, in 18th-century conditions, leaky roof and all, until he died
of cancer at age 51 in 1999. He felt he had been born in the wrong place, in
the wrong century.
“I think he was mad,” says my daughter. “He did the house really well though,” she adds.
Visit the website of Dennis Severs' House here.
