I have read about the Geffrye Museum in East London - Hackney and am thinking about going since i heard it was free - but English domestic interior from 1600 sounds so dull - not my cup of tea.

But i've learned that museums often have lures besides their main collections - maybe a neat old edifice that houses it?

Anyone been there and did you enjoy it, etc. Or did you find it Hackneyed?

One reason i would like to go is i like the East End - and Hackney i would think would be the old London of greasy cafes or perhaps it's an ethnic area - what is the area around the museum like.

Thanks for any guidance.


The Geffrye Museum
The Geffrye Museum is one of London's best-loved museums. It shows the changing style of the English domestic interior in a series of period rooms from 1600 ...
www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/

I've been 4 or 5 times -- I don't think it'd be <i>your</i> cup of tea.
(They don't sell Dulux in single servings . . . . . . . )

Their address is in Shoreditch, not Hackney.
http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/visiting/

I thought it was a lovely museum, but if period rooms is not your cup of tea, then don't bother. The period gardens in the back of the museum is very nice too.

You can read about my visit last year here:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...omment-2006641

Thanks yk - excerpted from yk's museum report:

&lt;Many people raved about the cafe/restaurant at the Geffrye museum. It has nice setting overlooking the gardens, but I was still too full from lunch so I didn't eat there.&gt;

this appeals to me - i love museum cafes in nice settings.

Janis - maybe we can meet there for tea? OTOH if Janis has seen fit to go there 4 or 5 times i'm sure it's not my cup of tea - but if a proper dose of dulux then perhaps.

cheers - yk thanks.

Here's my take on it:
http://autolycus-london.blogspot.com...fth-night.html

It's a short bus ride from Liverpool St, so you could take it in with a visit to the Sunday markets at Spitalfields/Brick Lane or Columbia Road. Lots of choice of places to eat there. Kingsland Road/Shoreditch High St is not the most visually enticing area, but there are a fair few Vietnamese restaurants round about.

P.S., not so much a Dulux place as Farrow &amp; Ball perhaps, janis?

If you want to visit Hackney, you should consider visiting Sutton House (National Trust). One of the oldest houses in East End, dating back to the Tudor period.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-suttonhouse

Geffrey Museum is free, so certainly it won't hurt for you to pay a visit, even if it's just for a meal at the cafe and a stroll in the period gardens in the back.

Patrick - I wouldn't think Farrow and Ball would have the same kick as Dulux. Not from personal experience, of course . . . . . .

I think the good and bad thing about the Geffrye is that it's off the beaten tourist path. I enjoy decorative arts so it's always been fun for me. But if you have NO interest in that sort of thing I don't know why you would bother going. There are nice gardens and cafes all over London.

It's well worth checking out their special events.

I attended a ceramics fair there in the fall which featured many wonderful contemporary artists. I think it's an annual event. Around the holidays the various rooms are decorated in period style. My daughter and I have enjoyed that on a couple of occasions.

yk - thanks for the Sutton House link - for some reason i thought Sutton House was in Sussex. Patrick - thanks for your description - sounds like the area is neat. Nice picture of you too.

janis- if you've ever used the creme de la creme of paints - Farrow &amp; Ball - you'd never go back to the stuff sold at D I Y stores. I always bring a few pints back to the States.

&gt;&gt; I always bring a few pints back to the States.&lt;&lt;

Not in your hand luggage, I trust...

The Geffrye Museum isn't really in Hackney. It's in the London Borough of Hackney - but political boundaries rarely correlate with London's great attitudinal and cultural faultlines.

It's in a bit of a wasteland, just north of the City and just to the east of Islington. Though it's a beautiful building, it's mostly got crap 1950s municipal horrors for neighbours. Although about half to three quarters of a mile north and south along the Kingsland Rd there are clusters of proper greasy spoons and Costcutters, there's nothing comfortably accessible fromn the museum itself (you've got to drive or get a bus). Above all: it belongs to the London whose parents worry about whether they're sending their children to the right cello class for a scholarship to Balliol or King's (the original one: not the London 1820's pastiche). Not the London convinced the Krays were good to their mum.

For those of us with a paternal interest in the doings of Canonbury and Hillgate Village parents, the Geffrye is fascinating. If you want proximity to a bit of rough, you'd have more fun in the strip pubs around Shoreditch High St and Hackney Rd