Paid entry – £14.50 for adults, £5 12-17 year olds, under 12s free.
Wednesday-Sunday
What it is
Museum tags: Music and performance; Rock and roll; Classical music; Performance; Jimi Hendrix; Biographical museum; Period rooms
A unique museum, showcasing the lives of two of the most iconic museums to live in London: Jimi Hendrix and classical composer George Frideric Handel. In a restored Georgian townhouse, it showcases the homes of both (if they’d been contemporaries, they’d have been neighbours!). Handel lived here from 1723 until his death in 1759; Hendrix for a year in the late 1960s. Rooms are set out as they were in both of their times. There are also some excellent exhibitions about Jimi Hendrix’s life and music
The section dedicated to Handel is excellent too. The museum was shut for improvements, and when I visited after it reopened I found this section far more engaging (though perhaps I’m just more receptive to classical music than I used to be).
But above all, this museum is brilliant because of what it shows about London. It tells the story of two immigrant Londoners who came to the city and left their mark on the world of music. By placing their lives next to each other, and preserving how they lived, we get an insight into how the city has changed over the centuries — how we’ve lived in these buildings, with centuries of stories and ghosts of the past, and created new legacies.
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