I mentioned, somewhere, that early September had been busy.

On the weekend following the All Ireland we were in London to visit Hannah.

In Hannah's garden.

As you can see, it was beautiful weather - all weekend - and we did things, lots of things............

On the Saturday, Hannah having asked us what we would like to do, we went, at my request, after an enormous, delicious and decadent breakfast at Bistrotheque, to the Geffrye Museum.

And we walked to it through Victoria Park.........

..............and along the Hertford Union canal.

I had not been to the Geffrye Museum since before I left London in 1967 (to live in Ireland) but I had clear memories of it being a wonderful museum - hence my request.

And I was not disappointed.

I remembered it as having been very child or, information, focused - as you would reasonably expect of a museum then run by the Inner London Education Authority.

Anyway, the Geffrey Museum, now run by a trust, concerns itself exclusively with the furniture and furnishings of the 'middling sort' which is how the middle classes were referred to until the nineteenth century.

The museum is in almshouses built in 1714 with a bequest from Sir Robert Geffrey, Master of the Ironmongers' Company and Lord Mayor of the City of London.

Unsurprisingly, given its date, the building itself is exquisite.

And the Geffrey Museum, as a furniture museum, is well situated as the east-end of London had been until the 1930's and beyond, a centre of the furniture industry. - I used to go to Curtain Road in Shoreditch to buy veneers and inlays from a company called Crispins and I would go regularly to Petticoat Lane, very early on Sunday mornings, in search of goods to sell-on in Portabello Road.
And on those Sunday mornings I would breakfast on Jewish breads and pickled-herrings because thereabouts at that time – and for all I know there still is – there was a significant Jewish population.

The museum employs the very simple, but so satisfactory, device of showing the furniture of a typical middling sort's parlour, or living area, in room-settings, sequentially between 1600 and the present.

The detailed information about the items displayed is available in ante-chambers but the exhibits - the rooms - are uncluttered by that cacophony of information that so often accompanies exhibits in a 'standard' museum.
I say this because I wonder if I am I alone in observing that, on many a museum or gallery visit, the item on display is eclipsed by the view of the back, or backs, of others myopically scrutinising the legend, not the displayed object itself!
And it reminded me of another museum / gallery that offers a sequential experience, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. Although the examples of Picasso's work exhibited there are generally minor, it leads you through the ages and stages of his work, from childhood on, in a sequence that, by this construct, allows you, or me anyway, to better comprehend the breadth, development and diversity of his genius.

But back to Geffrye.

I really enjoyed our visit. The 'cellular' nature of an almshouse building lends itself perfectly to the room-by-room layout I described.
There is a reading room and, since I was there last, an annex has been added at the back with an exhibition area and lecture rooms for interactive events.
When we were there there was an exhibition of pictures taken within and by the local community of Hackney of 'where I live'.... thus a wonderfully eclectic series of images of interiors, exteriors, events, meals, ornaments and more and more reflecting the multi-national, multi-cultural and the widening class-spread of the locality as the east-end of London becomes, if not gentryfied, at least middle-class......I mean occupied increasingly by the 'middling sort'.

And of course there was the ubiquitous Museum Shop from which I picked-up this...........

….............about which I will report and opine more, very shortly.