Dennis Severs’ House

I like the quirky «off the beaten path» things in the cities and towns I visit. This is one of those things. Dennis Severs was an artist of sorts who basically turned his home into a living diorama that depicted how a fictional family of weavers (the Jervis family) may have lived back in the 1700s. You pay your £10-£15 (depending on when you go), and then enter into the home. You can’t take photos – and anyway, the lighting is pretty low so they’d be terrible if you had. But, imagine starting in the basement. You come upon some kind of dusty storage room with a low and somewhat deteriorating ceiling from which you can hear the creaks and coos of the Jervis family living above you. You peer around at some cob-​webbed cups and maybe an old doll or two (unless I fabricated that as part of my memory). Like the other reviews mention (and the pamphlet you’ll receive ironically after your tour, though it makes more sense to receive beforehand), the whole point is that you become part of this «still life drama» (or, as I said, living diorama). «You either see it or you don’t» is the motto of the house, which I assume is a weird way of saying you should live in that moment, feel like you’re there back in the 1700s with this family, a family you can hear but never quite see. But, you know they’re there, as you can see the plate on the table with unfinished food and can smell the candles burning. I does feel like you are in someone’s actual home (if you ignore the workers placed on each floor who watch over you to ensure you touch nothing or the signs that remind you you are on CCTV or can use your imagine to pretend the sounds you hear don’t sound like they are being played from tape player with a rather poor recording, which many of them most certainly do).
The tour continues as you move from room to room and floor to floor, smelling different smells, taking note of a table with a cup of tea, the bedding ruffled as if someone was just there, the book laid open with the page held down by spectacles, the ironic NY Yankees hat on a side table, deteriorating floor boards and ceiling panels in the attic – presumably for a poor tenant renting from the family (I think a plaque somewhere in there said), and the many odds and ends on the shelves and the old portraits on the walls. It is rather interesting to just see what this family owned (or just what Dennis Severs chose to put in his home/​museum), even if the items aren’t necessarily actually from the 1700s – um, especially the Yankees hat. And, I like that a cat does still live there – perhaps Mr. Severs reincarnated?
Bottom line: This place is pretty cool and quirky, but I think that many people will find this a bit less entertaining than the price tag deserves (which could be lowered if they get volunteers to staff the place and open it more often). After all, the light is so low you can’t quite see all the objects and going from room to room doesn’t take all that much time. And, it’s not necessarily authentic to the 1700s – just one man’s vision of it. But, if you don’t mind spending a few beers’ worth of quid on something other than beer, this is an interesting stop. And, you can go have an amazing dinner at nearby Andina afterwards. Or, a nice snack at Beigel Bake.

Visiting this historical installation was an evocative and slightly unnerving experience but ultimately left me feeling like there wasn’t much There there. Especially not £15 worth of «there» to walk through an installation and be exhorted by a series of little signs to look past what was in front of my eyes. Maybe I would have felt less like I was missing something if I wasn’t constantly being told that I definitely was.

This is a unique experience to be sure. I enjoyed seeing the different montages of rooms from different centuries and time periods, with all the lovely antiques and atmospheric smells and sounds. However, I came away feeling disappointed. In a city full of free museums, you expect something special when you have to cough up a £10 entry fee. I wish that there was more of a coherent narrative for the house. There was no particular logic as you moved from room to room, skipping from the 17^th century to the 19^th, walking through rooms that seemed as though they were meant to be real models of how people lived, and others that hinted at characters from Dickens’ novels and Victorian fiction. Plus, I found all the little notes telling me to stop looking at the objects, to look at what they’re doing rather condescending and a bit tedious. One note would have been sufficient, I don’t need a reminder in every room!
Overall, it was interesting and I enjoyed it, but I don’t think it’s worth the £10, If you live in London, take the time to see it, but if you’re travelling here for only a short time, go for the lovely FREE museums like the British Museum and the V&A.

This is the best, most memorable experience I’ve ever had at any museum or art installation. This house is full of living history that you can see, smell, and hear. It is a life altering experience. If you visit London as a tourist go immediately so that if you want to go again before you leave you will have time. After you go, you will possibly lose the desire to go to an actual museum because you know that you will never again be immersed in the past the way that you were inside that house.
After you go to the house you can walk around Spitalfields and go to the flower market (if it’s open) and the ethnic foods tents which have food from literally every country.
Beyond description!

This was really oversold to me so I think it took away from the experience. As did the two women who would not stop talking at full volume while I went through the house.
I went on a Sunday afternoon and found it quite crowded. Even though you can go through at your own pace, queues within the house and rooms packed with people made it feel rushed.
I imagine being in the house alone would be a really incredible (and expensive!) experience.
I strongly discourage going on a Sunday (sans booking) like I did!

Dennis Severs’ House is interesting, yet at times seems like the ramblings of a mad man. Constant notes across the house that read «you either see it or you don’t» and «if you’re looking at the THINGS, you’re missing it» and «there’s something beyond sight and sound» eventually start to come off as a man losing his mind. And though I visited this place well after his death, videos of him show he was a little loony. You have to be if you are going to be peeing in pots.
We were greeted by a man in a waiters outfit (which was never explained) and he seemed brainwashed. Like a loyal follower of Severs who truly believed there were messages in every cubic centimeter of the air we were breathing.
We toured through the place at whatever pace we wanted, which was nice. The waiters-​outfit-​guy strictly said this was not a museum, and scared me a little with the creepy things he was saying about noises and smells. The rooms themselves are very cool and I enjoyed the concept that it was like a «3D painting» that you were experiencing. It was unique, but everyone I was with felt they didn’t truly understand what Severs was trying to get across. Just in how everything was a clue, but we couldn’t mentally picture what he wanted.
At one point a lady who I guess worked there started creepily scratching the wall. We all looked at her and she backed away. We all looked at the wall and she was literally scratching nothing. Nervous tick? I don’t want to sleep tonight.
My favorite part about the whole thing was that there was a live cat at the basement level. The fact that no one lives there and that there is still a living cat who was very friendly was neat.
Overall it was a cool collection of things and the set up was interesting, but we all left it more confused than anything else.

Easily my favorite site of all the museums, oddities and nooks I obsessively explored while I was in London.
«This house is a time capsule, sometimes opened up. To enter its door is to pass through a frame into a painting: one with a time and a life of its own.»
As the web site explains, the house’s creator, Dennis Severs, spent many years trying to recapture, through painstaking effort and detail, the lifestyle of a family living in the 1700s in London. The product of his efforts is Dennis Severs House, and it is captivating.
Why spoil the mystery by revealing details here, though? The idea is that this house is a unique experience for each visitor — it captures your imagination and your senses (including smell!) and will leave specific interpretations up to you.
You wander from room to room, perhaps starting in the basement and making your way up several levels, and the whole time you feel as though you are a visitor (an intruder, rather) in a house that is being inhabited by a wealthy, busy family in the 18^th century.
It truly does take you away. I remember being jolted back to reality when I found myself on the outside doorstep afterward, thrust back into the cold, damp streets of 21^st century London. It’s almost a lonely feeling, and you suddenly rush to commit to memory every image you’ve just taken in.
But enough blabbing from me! Go see it for yourself. I was fortunate enough to get a ticket during Christmastime, when the house was appropriately decorated, but it will no doubt be unforgettable regardless of the time of year. To reserve your spot, go to the web site, click «bookings and visiting,» and send an email.
When I have kids one day, I can’t wait to take them here and experience it all over again with them.

Having my couture studio across the street from Dennis Severs House, I walk past it daily on this historic cobbled street Norton Folgate. The street is steeped in history and the D S House just brings to life the atmosphere and feeling of history.
It is an interesting part of London. The City is something special and in particular Spital Square and the side streets.

This is a very strange place. I went on a candlelit evening just before Christmas and I felt like I was walking into a house from a Dickens novel. I didn’t know what I was going to see as a friend dragged me along, and I spent at least half my time there completely flummoxed about what I was seeing. Then I realised it’s sort of like being in a giant art installation and really started to enjoy being in the space. I think I’d reccomend this to everyone, but I’m not sure everyone would get it.

The Happiness Project has really summed up this place very well with a comprehensive review so I will just add a couple of observations.
One of the rooms has a Hogarth painting depicting revellers around a table drinking and carousing. Standing in front of the picture the room is designed to feel like an extension of it and the sights, smells and sounds are designed to help you drift off into the scene.
This device is used throughout, most often by a portrait of various family members where the room extends from the picture to give you an idea of their character, for example the obsession with oranges or the coronation depending on the room.
It is an immensley atmospheric experience but I guess I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and thought there might be some sort of continuous narrative throughout; maybe a murder mystery or something. Alas this was not the case and indeed I’m not sure I saw the elusive «it»
Still it was a very different and thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an evening.

You walk around it speechless, and you walk away speechless. You «either see it or you don’t» — and it’s one of those things that you won’t really understand until you’ve stood in one of the rooms long enough to let go of your inhibitions and just let the room enter YOU. Truly one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had in London!
This place hit me so hard that I had two dreams about it that night. The first was about the house itself, and the second was about the way that the house affects you when you realize what it’s about.
The best part is walking around in silence. Each person walks away with something different. Some people walk away with nothing at all. Best to go with an open mind…

Full review on

A friend told me about Dennis Severs’ House in Spitalfields, and it sounded intriguing — not so much a museum as an experience. So my trusted friend for all things cultural, and I went along on Monday evening.
Concealed from the street, we stepped Alice-​in-​Wonderland style into an old, candlelit world. Dennis Severs, an artist (I imagine quite an eccentric one), bought this house in the late ‘40s and lived as if part of its early 18^th century life. The house has a story it looks, sounds and smells as if you have just walked in on a family of Hugenot silk-​weavers, the Jervis family. It captures a moment in time glasses filled with sherry, cups with coffee, coats thrown over chairs, beds rumpled, smells lingering in the air (camomile and rose in the bedroom, coffee, sweets, burning fires), sounds of life outside, broken cups, half-​eaten toast, fires flickering, books open at the page it was being read, its reader throwing down their glasses before they left.
The historical details reminded me of the Georgian House in Edinburgh, which replicates life in the 18^th century. However, maybe because of its location in East London, or the fact it was founded by an artist, this place is more of an artistic experience like poetry or painting, relying on the visitor’s imagination to bring it to life. There are notes left round the house to remind you to use your imagination, your senses, to take it all in. They call it a Still Life Drama and their motto is you either see it or you don’t which made me slightly paranoid that I wasn’t seeing it, whatever it was but I certainly found it a beautiful and atmospheric experience.
I loved Lady Jervis’ room with her dressing table and jewels, the table where she took her coffee, and amazing four-​poster bed (I imagined how nice it would be to awake in my four-​poster while my servant brought me breakfast tea and crumpets on a silver tray); the grand drawing room with its huge marble fireplace, elaborate curtains and amazing cornices; the servants’ quarters with their mess and dirt and cold; the smaller room on the 1^st floor where the painting above the fireplace resembles the room itself, or the room is the painting. It was then that I felt like I was part of the painting, an actor in a film.
We realised with sadness that in the midst of this expanding City of chrome, high-​rise and glass, exist these beautiful old houses on cobbled streets with their marble fireplaces, cornices and wood, and most of all their histories and stories, many of which are being re-​developed. History buffs, City types, architecture fans or those visiting Spitalfields market or Brick Lane, I’d definitely recommend you pop in.

This house is deliciously eerie and takes you through the history of how life must have been lived in it, through the early and late Georgian periods up to the Victorian period. Dennis Severs actually lived in it like this, and made the house into a living work of art — lit by candles and oil lamps, with some rooms charmingly higgledy-​piggledy and some a bit frightening (there’s one on the ground floor that really gave me the willies). The voluntary guides are helpful and welcoming, and as you walk through the house you get the impression that whoever lives — or lived — there has just left it, with glasses of wine standing on the tables, half eaten food, half-​heard conversations.
Something in the place — a sense that you are a sort of welcome trespasser — makes you tiptoe a bit, and speak in whispers.
This is a strange and memorable experience, and though, as other reviewers have pointed out, it doesn’t seem all that exciting on paper, it will stay with you.

This is a house once owned by the late Dennis Severs. He chose to stage the house as it would feel and look like several centuries ago. You must observe in silence looking around you and taking in all the little details. This house is one of very few that has not been modernized in Georgian spitalfields.
I went one Christmas time and I noticed that the mince pies smelled of fruit and spice. I could feel the just baked warmth emanating from them. Take your time and soak in the atmosphere. Gradually your mind will retune itself to an age where such things like iPhones and the net is unknown. At the end of the tour I glanced out of the window expecting to see a Dickensian London but I was shocked to see the steel and glass towers of London.

Hugely camp but sort of gorgeous house in the heart of Spitalfields in which you move through time as you climb the stairs. You start in the basement in a seventeenth century kitchen, complete with food, crockery, pots and pans, and work your way up to Victorian bedrooms at the top. The attention to detail is astounding and you’re supposed to feel as if the inhabitants left the room just as you entered hence the touches like the toppled tea cup. It’s a little precious, you’re not allowed to take photos or speak above a whisper so as not to ruin the atmosphere for others but it is such a fun experience, almost like performance art. I was here for hours looking at absolutely everything as there’s just so much to look at. Booking is essential as they can’t let too many people in at once.

This place is absolutely extraordinary.
It’s a house which has been left in a pristine state by the artist who lives there. So basically, it’s a 18^th century interior looking just the way it did, totally unchanged.
I can’t begin to do it justice. The thrill is, you walk around this house in absolute silence, to preserve the feeling that it’s a real house with real people. So the atmosphere of time warp is just superb. It’s like history was in the room a couple of moments before you entered. It’s only open for special requests, so you have to book ahead through the website. But I cannot sell this place highly enough, everyone should be able to walk around…

Tucked away down a side street close to loads of shiney new buildings is Dennis Severs’ bizarre little house. It’s hard to know what to describe it as — it’s a kind of museum of stuff that this bloke collected. It’s been set up as a family lives there and has got sound effects and fresh food and things cooking to make it feel lived in.
While this wouldn’t immediatley sound like something you would want to go to, it’s better than I’ve described it.
You might have to queue for a while before you can get in — they limit the amount of people who can get in at once (we had to wait about 30 mins) so take an umbrella if it looks like it might rain! It’s also got limited opening hours so check on the website before hand to make sure it’ll be open when you get there. Apparently they sometimes do evening tours by candle light, which I’m sure would be well worth doing!

Authentic early 18^th century house. First went here when Dennis was alive and had the experience of his enthusiastic tour of the house, complete with piss pots and tobacco burners, to give the rich feel of old London and the smells of the city. Would love to go dressed as loud American Tourist, ‘Oh my God honey, this stuff is so old! I wanna buy it and ship it back home in boxes