The period-drama imagination, it seems, has already been colonised by television. Yet each room seems expectant, primed for the entrance of B-list actors from BBC period dramas and adaptations: Downton Abbey, Great Expectations, Return to Cranford, Abigail's party, The Good Life. The museum, so says the brochure, is limited to the domesticity of the middle classes. There is an 1936 flat with it’s ubiquitous faded avocado color scheme and an early television set in the corner, towards which every flower-print upholstered armchair, with matching antimacassar, is keenly pointing. There is an 1745 parlour with matching red velvet curtains and seat slips which complement the dark wood and Japanned cabinets and sideboard.There is an 1830 drawing room with cobalt blue chaise longues and a crackling, projected-image fire for ladies to warm their feet by. Each room is historically crystallised, a set piece of the times a stage for episodic imaginings. Visitors are invited to consider the changing styles of domesticity, chairs, textiles, dining habits, within an imagined London terrace house. The museum consists of a series of chronologically organised ‘period rooms’ leading the viewer through the ages from 1630 right up to the present day.
“Look” says a man to his young daughter “can you see how the house has changed, doesn't it look different?” It does, there is no denying it. Walking through the Geffrye Museum of the Home in Hoxton at noon on a weekday is a complicated modern experience.
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