£424,000 Heritage Lottery grant for
Keats House
Keats House will be transformed thanks to a grant of £424,000
from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The award is the culmination
of four years of preparation and research work for the Magic
Casements project. It will allow the Grade 1 listed building to be
sensitively and painstakingly restored internally, to reflect its
original decoration. Improvements to security and environment will
also enable much more of the collection to be publicly
displayed.
Read
the full press release here.
News of the project and updates on progress will be posted here
during our closure.
Winter 2007/8
Following the closure of Keats House in October staff from Keats
House and London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) started an extensive
programme of moves. LMA conservation staff packaged and moved
the current displays of historic artefacts including lockets of
hair, delicate lace night caps and sewing implements. In
addition, a large collection of 18th and 19th century volumes were
checked, individually wrapped and transported to LMA.
Constantine fine art removers were
contracted to carefully package and move the historic
furniture and paintings. This included three days
of intensive packing and two days of moving. The
paintings have been temporarily relocated to the Guildhall Art
Gallery where the pictures and frames will be condition
assessed and conserved as appropriate.
The external display loans at the house were returned to the
Museum of London, National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and
Albert Museum. A wide selection of period furniture, framed
paper prints and drawings have also been protected and are now
housed in secure storage at LMA.
Keats House staff together with all their office furniture,
files, computer equipment and teacups moved to LMA over the next
few weeks, where they will continue to answer enquiries and run
events and outreach projects while work is carried out at the
house.