Miss Elaineous: MISS ELAINEOUS VISITS DENNIS SEVERS' HOUSE...

I only learned of this Spitalfields tourist attraction recently, when something popped up on Google. I can't even remember what I was researching, but I thought that visiting this house would be a good idea.

Here is the outside of the house. Above the front door is a gas lamp. Trust me; neither time or tide nor modernity has touched this place.

It was one of the weirdest and most unnerving experiences of my life. Here is their blurb:-

'Its creator was Dennis Severs, an artist who used his visitors’ imaginations as his canvas and who lived in the house in much the same way as its original occupants might have done in the early 18th Century. This he did for his own personal enjoyment as well as for the harvest of an atmosphere, which he then employed to provide the visitor with an extraordinary experience. To enter its door is to pass through a frame into a painting, one with a time and life of its own.

'The game is that you interrupt a family of Huguenot silk weavers named Jervis who, though they can still sometimes be heard, seem always to be just out of sight. As you journey off into a silent search through the ten rooms, each lit by fire and candlelight, you receive a number of stimulations to your senses.

'Visitors begin to do what they might if indeed they had travelled through a frame into a painting: use what they sense to piece together the scene they had missed. Thus, and this was Mr Severs’ intention, what you imagine… is his art.

'Be warned, it is a mistake to trivialise or pigeonhole the experience into any of the mothball camps: “heritage”, “local history”, “antiques”, “lifestyle” or “museum”. A visit requires the same style of concentration as does an exhibition of Old Masters.'

Source:- https://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk/

The tour is conducted in silence, mobile phones must be turned off and photography is not allowed (hence these images of the house are PDFs).

It is open on some evenings and for a limited amount of time on a couple of days. On a Monday, it is open from 12pm-2pm and, on a drizzly day, I duly rolled up at a couple of minutes to twelve to find a queue had already formed. They only let ten people in at a time and, as I was number twenty-one in the queue, I had to wait twenty minutes. It wasn't all that bad- I had my (leopard print!) brolly with me and the time soon vanished. It costs a tenner to get in and I thought that was reasonable.

We are, firstly, invited into the basement. Here is the larder, with its shrine to Spitalfields. Don't be fooled by the light, which has, no doubt been created for the purpose of photography- the house is candlelit throughout and it is REALLY dark in this part.

Here is the kitchen, which was my favourite room of the house. I'm sure that this room has featured on the TV programme, 'If Walls Could Talk', which was presented by Lucy Worsley. The fire is real, as are some of the objects. I can certainly vouch for the wibbly-wobbly jelly, as I had a sneaky poke!

Here is the dining room. You do have to focus on the detail, as every room abounds with clutter but, you see, it has all been put there for a purpose.

Next we came to a parlour that seemed to be a shrine to Victorian bad taste, which was interesting as the blurb dictates that the house is styled in the manner of the early 18th century.

The view of the little tropical garden is lovely. Here's a PDF I pulled, featuring the manager of the house, Nick Pedroli. I don't usually like people in my depictions, but it was the only image I could find!

We venture upwards to the first floor and a much more feminine room, set up for afternoon tea. Candied fruits are on display in the hallway and you can smell these, adding to the atmosphere. The sounds of the street are also piped through. They are very realistic.

Here is the smoking room. On the wall is a William Hogarth painting and the owner of the house has tried to make the display of the room depict exactly what's going on the picture. This is very freaky! I think this is the room that had a strong smell of woodsmoke.

Upstairs to the bedroom, which gives a new meaning to shabby chic... I especially loved the dressing tables dotted around the building, resplendent with feminine requirements such as jewellery and hairbrushes. I loved looking into the grainy mirrors, expecting to see... what, exactly? Was I hoping to be transported back in time? The beds looked like someone had just got out of them but did we really need to see the chamber pots?!

Here is the decidedly female side room on this floor.

Up to the lodgers' bedroom, with corners created to look like scenes from more than one Dickens novel. This room was falling apart and was really bloody cold and creepy.

Side weaver's room. I stood on a loose floorboard and the bobbin to one side of the weaving gear started sliding upwards. Talk about (unintentionally ) interactive!

What Dennis Severs was thinking of, I do not know. He lived from 1948-1999 and lived in this house, as it is displayed to us, for some years. Why? Only he could answer that. I found the whole experience unsettling. I didn't quite feel like the Jervis family had just left any of the rooms as I entered. Maybe it was the presence of other tourists? Maybe it was catching glimpses of my modern-dressed self in the mirror? But I certainly 'got it.' And strangely enough, I would visit the house again. There's something about it that draws you in.

After I left the house, I wandered into Spitalfields Market, around the corner. But the smell of the many foodstuffs on sale, competing with each other for prominence in the wintry air, made me feel sick so I finished my day with a drink in The Ten Bells, famous for being the pub in which Jack the Ripper's prostitute victims drank. It is, apparently, mostly unchanged since his day.

A lady came up to me and mentioned that she'd seen me in Dennis Severs' House, and asked what I made of it. 'I found it creepy,' was my answer. We both agreed that we wouldn't want to live the way they did in those days and are glad that times have moved on.