About
The Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum) explores the home through 400 years of English middle-class domestic interiors. Housed in beautiful 18th-century almshouses with contemporary extensions, the museum presents a series of period rooms showing how living spaces have evolved from 1630 to the present day.
Each room is carefully recreated with authentic furniture, textiles, decorations, and objects, bringing to life changing tastes, technologies, and lifestyles.
Visitors journey from dark oak-panelled Stuart parlours through Georgian elegance, Victorian clutter, and modernist simplicity to contemporary living.
The museum also features restored almshouse rooms showing how the original residents lived, beautiful period gardens demonstrating historic garden design, and exhibitions exploring themes of home, identity, and belonging.
Recent renovations added galleries examining the emotional and cultural meanings of home, addressing questions of who feels at home in Britain and how homes reflect identity and aspiration.
This is not just a furniture museum but a profound exploration of how we live, what home means, and how domestic life shapes and reflects society.
Categories:
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Busiest: Saturday, Sunday
💡 Weekday mornings, allow time for gardens
💡 Visitor Tips
- Allow 2-3 hours to fully appreciate rooms, gardens, and new galleries
- Free entry and excellent café make this perfect for leisurely visits
- The period rooms are beautifully detailed - look closely at objects
- Gardens are a highlight - visit in spring/summer for best experience
- New Home Galleries add contemporary perspective to historic displays
- Excellent for design enthusiasts, social historians, and anyone curious about domestic life
- Weekday mornings quieter than weekends
- Combine with Sunday Columbia Road Flower Market visit
Highlights
Period Rooms 1630-Present
Series of meticulously recreated living rooms showing 400 years of middle-class English domestic style. From Stuart oak to Georgian elegance, Victorian excess to modernist restraint, each room immerses visitors in its period through authentic furniture, textiles, and objects.
Restored Almshouse Rooms
Original 18th-century almshouse rooms restored to show how the building's first residents - elderly furniture makers - lived. These intimate spaces contrast middle-class aspiration in period rooms with working-class reality.
Period Gardens
Beautiful series of historic gardens from Tudor herb garden to contemporary urban plot, demonstrating how garden design and usage evolved alongside interiors. Perfect for sunny day visits.
Home Galleries
New galleries exploring emotional and cultural meanings of home - who belongs, who feels at home, how homes express identity. Contemporary installations and personal stories complement historic rooms.
Collections
Over 30,000 objects including furniture from 17th century to present, textiles and soft furnishings, ceramics and glass, paintings and prints, domestic objects and technology, architectural elements, garden tools and ornaments, and oral histories about home. Strengths in middle-class domestic interiors, London furniture makers, and social history of the home.
Growing contemporary collection exploring diverse experiences of home.
Rooms Through Time
Period room displays from 1630 to present day
📍 Historic almshouses
Home Galleries
Exploring meanings, memories, and identities of home
📍 New wing
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.
Nearby Museums (5 within 6 miles)
The Museum of Methodism and John Wesley's House
Heritage & Historic Buildings
London — ~12 min walk (0.6 mi)
The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
London — ~18 min walk (0.9 mi)