Enfilade

From the Geffrye Museum:

Christmas Past: 400 Years Of Seasonal Traditions In English Homes
Geffrye Museum, London, 23 November 2010 — 5 January 2011

A parlour as envisioned from 1745 (sans Christmas decorations), London: Geffrye Museum. Photography Jonathan Greet. Click on the image for a panormic view.

Christmas Past offers visitors a fascinating insight into how Christmas has been celebrated in English middle-class homes from 1600 to the present day. Each year, authentic festive decorations transform the museum’s eleven period rooms, creating a vivid and evocative picture of how earlier generations of Londoners celebrated Christmas. The rooms provide the perfect setting for visitors to explore the origins of some of the rich and colourful traditions of Christmases past, from feasting, dancing and kissing under the mistletoe to playing parlour games, hanging up stockings, sending cards, decorating the tree and throwing cocktail parties.

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

Visitors to the Geffrye can view our permanent display of eleven period rooms which span approximately 400 years from around 1600 to the present day. There is also a walled herb garden and a series of four period gardens, chronologically arranged to reflect the museum’s period rooms, which can be visited between 1 April and 31 October. To the front of the museum there is a large garden facing onto Kingsland Road, which is currently being refurbished. Additionally, there is a restored 18th-century almshouse, open to visitors on selected days, which has been taken back to its original condition and provides a glimpse into the lives of London’s poor and elderly in the 1780s and 1880s.

We know that not everyone is able to visit the Geffrye in person so we are always looking to create new ways for online visitors to experience the museum more fully. We have recently added panoramas of all the period rooms, gardens and almshouse rooms, which provide a highly detailed, immersive way to experience the museum. There is also our online Virtual Tour which offers a timeline through the museum and gardens and highlights significant objects and plants. You will also find short descriptions of all the rooms and gardens, adding context to the new visual material. . . .