Keats House
Keats Grove
Hampstead
London
Greater London
NW3 2RR
England
Website
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/keatshousehampstead
keatshouse@cityoflondon.gov.uk
Telephone
020 7332 3868
Keats House is where the poet John Keats (1795-1821) lived from 1818 to 1820. Here he wrote some of his best known poetry, including "Ode to a Nightingale". The house is a Grade 1 listed building set in a peaceful garden in Hampstead. It has been open to the public since 1925.
Venue Type:
Historic house or home, Garden, parklands or rural site, Museum
Additional info
Study facilities are available at London Metropolitan Archives.
The Keats House Collection consists of books, manuscripts, letters, prints, paintings and artefacts relating to the life of the poet John Keats (1795-1821), his circle and the English Romantic movement. The Keats House Collection, including the Keats Memorial Library, is currently available for consultation by appointment only. Please contact us for further information.
Collection details
Archives, Literature, Personalities
Key artists and exhibits
- John Keats
- Joseph Severn
Disabled Genius: Alexander Pope – Poet, Satirist, Scourge and Wit
Talk. Join Colin Pinney to discover the life of “The Little Nightingale”, as Sir Joshua Reynolds called him, from his childhood in Windsor Forest to the coffee houses of eighteenth-century London – the age of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and John Gay’s Beggars’ Opera.
When
2:30-3:30pm
Admission
Free. Part of the Keats Festival 2013. Free and paid events must all be booked in advance unless otherwise stated. Contact Keats House on 020 7332 3868, or email us at keatshouse@cityoflondon.gov.uk If you book a space and then can’t come, please let us know so we can offer the place to somebody else.
Website
Keats, Cobbett and Cottage Gardens – Fine Words Buttering Parsnips
Keats Poetry timelessly evokes the fecund beauty of cottage gardens. Cobbett's political rant 'Cottage Economy' decries potatoes and tea whilst praising maize and homebrew. Caroline Holmes explores both in a talk which will culminate amongst the blossoms and borders of Keats House garden. A Chelsea Fringe event.
When
4-6pm
Admission
£7
Keats, Cobbett and Cottage Gardens – Fine Words Buttering Parsnips
Keats’s poetry timelessly evokes the fecund beauty of cottage gardens. Cobbett’s political rant ‘Cottage Economy’ decries potatoes and tea whilst praising maize and homebrew. Caroline Holmes explores both in a talk with Q&A which will culminate amongst the blossoms and borders of Keats House garden. A Chelsea Fringe event. Contact Keats House on 020 7332 3868, or email us at keatshouse@cityoflondon.gov.uk If you book a space and then can’t come, please let us know so we can offer the place to somebody else.
Suitable for
- Family friendly
When
4-6pm
Admission
£7.00. Part of the Keats Festival 2013. Free and paid events must all be booked in advance unless otherwise stated.
Website
The Poetry Parnassus Postscript: Crossing Continents
Reading. A myriad of global voices - from the Performance poetry of Mexico’s Rocío Cerón to the Caribbean-inflected, UK-influenced work of Malika Booker and Karen McCarthy-Woolf; from the British-Iranian sensibilities of Mimi Khalvati to the poetry of Antipodean writer Cath Drake, via the lyrical works of Armenia’s Poet Laureate, Razmik Davoyan. A night of continental shifts through the power of the word. In association with Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions.
When
6:30-8:30pm
Admission
£5.00. Part of the Keats Festival 2013. Free and paid events must all be booked in advance unless otherwise stated. Contact Keats House on 020 7332 3868, or email us at keatshouse@cityoflondon.gov.uk If you book a space and then can’t come, please let us know so we can offer the place to somebody else.
Bitter-Sweet
Workshop. Explore writing using all the senses, especially smell, with Cherry Potts, short story writer, novelist and owner of Arachne Press. If you have a scent that means a lot to you, bring it with you! For fiction writers and poets with all levels of experience.
When
10:30am-1:30pm
Admission
£10.00. Part of the Keats Festival 2013. Free and paid events must all be booked in advance unless otherwise stated. Contact Keats House on 020 7332 3868, or email us at keatshouse@cityoflondon.gov.uk If you book a space and then can’t come, please let us know so we can offer the place to somebody else.
Website
House History
Nick Barratt, genealogical consultant for Who Do You think You Are?, will lead a practical workshop showing how to trace the history of a property, from first steps to detailed archival research covering maps, land surveys, occupancy records, manorial documents and associated historic sources.
When
2-4pm
Admission
£10
Lovers’ Lies and Weird Lies
Reading. Focusing (loosely!) on Keats’s involvement with science, medicine and nature, Arachne Press brings you stories of the Garden of Eden, conversations with tadpoles, a meeting of minds across disciplines and love, repression and an old-fashioned approach to doctoring. Writings by Tania Hershman, Cherry Potts, Bobbie Darbyshire and Tom McKay.
When
3-4pm
Admission
£5.00. Part of the Keats Festival 2013. Free and paid events must all be booked in advance unless otherwise stated. Contact Keats House on 020 7332 3868, or email us at keatshouse@cityoflondon.gov.uk If you book a space and then can’t come, please let us know so we can offer the place to somebody else.
Website
‘The Silent Mysteries of Earth’
Join Rommi Smith for an outdoor creative writing workshop. Together, we’ll take morning tea in the garden, tuning into Keats House’s beautiful garden space, as both muse and inspiration. We’ll explore the magic of seeing things from different perspectives and techniques for imbuing the everyday with the extraordinary. Rommi Smith was poet in residence at Keats House 2010.
When
10:30am-1:30pm
Admission
£10
Getting there
By Tube (Northern Line, Edgware branch):
Hampstead tube to Keats House – 750m or just under half a mile (mostly downhill)
Belsize Park tube to Keats House – 750m or just under half a mile (up and downhill)
By London Overground:
Hampstead Heath train station – approximately 100m
By Bus:
Buses 24, 46, 168 and C11 all go to South End Green, next to Hampstead Heath Station; Bus 268 goes to the Rosslyn Hill junction with Downshire Hill
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