DENNIS SEVERS HOUSE – THE SILENT NIGHT TOUR
Hidden away in the East end of London is 18 Folgate Street, an unusual Georgian house renovated by artist Dennis Severs to create a unique journey through 200 years of time.
Visitors walk through the house by candlelight, seeing the rooms as if the inhabitants had just walked out one evening, with the detritus of family life left behind. Combined with sounds and scents, this is an extraordinary experience which takes place in total silence.
In amongst the towering chrome, steel and glass of the vibrant Tower Hamlets in the East End there are a few remaining pockets of old London, where the streets are still cobbled, the brick buildings are worn and faded and the black railings, window shutters and street lighting speak of earlier times. To step away from the crowds, off the busy main roads and into one of these small side streets is to step back in time into an older, calmer London.
It is hard to imagine that this area of London was once mainly rural, laid out with gardens until Georgian housing, including Folgate Street, was built for the Hugenot immigrants in the late 17th century.
Previously home to one of the biggest Medieval hospitals, St. Mary Spital (hence the name Spitalfields), the area has seen its fortunes rise and fall since then, falling into slums for many years until the arrival of the polished chrome tower blocks in recent years.
So much has been demolished in the name of progress, but a few patches of architectural resistance remain, and Folgate Street is one of them.
In 1979, long before the recent gentrification began, Folgate Street was in a very run down area of London, dilapidated, disintegrating and populated by bohemians and artists. Dennis Severs was an American artist who moved to London in the search for ‘English light’. He bought 18, Folgate Street and started on an ambitious refurbishment, doing up each of the rooms to represent a different time period from 1725 – 1919.
He created a narrative, that of the fictional Jervis family, Hugenot silk weavers who lived there in varying stages of affluence over the generations. He wasn’t just trying to create a museum piece however, but a living multi-dimensional work of art; a still life where you can believe that the family have literally just stepped outside while you explore their home, seeing the letters left on the sideboard, the half-eaten biscuits, the ear rings casually discarded on the table, the unmade bed.
Sounds of horse drawn carriages clopping by, the scent of the rosemary drying by the kitchen window, the aroma of Mrs Jervis’ favourite blend of tea all combine to make this a true feast for the senses and a labour of love for their creator.
Dennis Severs worked on his house until his early death in 1999, and the house was left to the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust, who now maintain and run his house for visitors.
One evening a week they run the Silent Night Tour, where you can book to visit the house in the evening, when darkness has fallen and the house is illuminated only by candles, firelight and gas lamps. All visitors are expected to uphold complete silence throughout their visit to preserve the atmosphere and minimise distraction.
As someone who loves not only history but ‘experiences’, a visit here has long been on my bucket list. I took my 11 year old son with me, having emailed first to ensure it was suitable for children. The reply was that he was the perfect age and in fact there is no minimum age limit, it all depends on the child. So if you know that your child can stay quiet throughout, they will be welcome. I was also recommended a children’s book, The Marvels by Brian Selznick, which I duly ordered from Amazon before we went. A massive gilt edged tome, it starts with an illustrated story about the Marvel family, followed by a story about the house and its creator, which was enough to whet our appetites about what lay ahead.
You arrive outside the house at the allotted time, have your names checked off and are given a short speech about the house, as well as a reminder to stay silent and not to take any photographs. The door is then opened and with instructions to start at the bottom of the house, you enter the dark passageway and start the experience.
Your immediate impression is one of darkness and gloom, as you tread down the creaky wooden stairs to the cellar. After a while your eyes adjust to the darkness and details begin to emerge.
The low ceilinged basement kitchen is warm and cosy with a black leaded stove, a fire in the grate and kettles just off the boil. The table is covered with cake ingredients such as sugar, flour, dried fruit and the strong scent of cinnamon. The floorboards are bare, the heavy oak dresser is stacked with crockery, chairs are pulled up to the fire, a maid’s cap is casually flung onto the corner of one of them.
Next door is the cellar, clearly used as a store room and heavy with cobwebs, dust and grime. The cast offs of family life are stacked in a corner, barely visible in the gloom, as a single lantern illuminates a pile of excavated rubble. A sign tells us that here are also the remains of the original hospital, built in 1197.
Back upstairs you enter the family rooms of the house. A dining room with the table covered in dirty plates, chairs pushed back, a napkin on the floor, half-drunk glasses of wine, a clock ticking loudly in the background.
The journey continues through the rooms, each with its own sounds, scents and visual excess. Every surface available, every corner has something to look at, some clue about the lives lived in here, with antique portraits of the fictional lives you’re scrutinising all looking down on you from above.
The candlelight keeps everything half hidden from you, the wording on the letters is hard to read and the shadows bounce around the room hiding more than they show. The glint of the candlesticks and the lustre of the golden frames contrast with the dark depths of the oak panelling that covers every wall, the play between light and dark keeping more hidden than it reveals.
Inside the Smoking Room a note told us this room was a painting come to life, that of the Hogarth-esque painting over the fire, (possibly the Gambling Scene from Hogarths ‘The Rakes Progress’, it was too dark to see clearly.)
This was very much a man’s room where chairs were knocked over, cards were strewn about the place, the smell of tobacco and alcohol pervaded, this room had seen some ribald activity and as Dennis Severs intended, shows ‘the practical disadvantages of all male extremes’. In one corner was a curtained off area that housed Mr Jervis’s wigs, powder and accoutrements; a small fragment that told us of the wealth and refinement that the family had reached.
Mrs Jervis bedroom revealed an ornate four poster bed with rumpled sheets, written letters on the mantel hinting at what goes on behind closed doors, cast off jewellery, the lingering smell of perfume, untidy chairs and a broken tea cup. A note told us that ‘some people can guess her mood by the position of the chairs’ and you start to inspect everything thoroughly under the steely gaze from her portrait – what had been going on in there?
These rooms, with their focus on the wealthy, early generations of the family, show us life for the affluent, the pursuits of people with time and refinement. The subtle shift from the Baroque, to the Rococo, to Neo Classicism is the backdrop to the lives of the people that lived here, to the hats and wigs flung off, people spending their own time away from their public lives. We are not told of their professional accomplishments, this is a focus on the private, the hidden and the intimate.
On the top floor we reach the later generations of the Jervis family, or of their lodgers, it’s not quite clear. Here are the signs of early 19th century abject poverty, threadbare laundry draped from on high, minimal candles that leave everything in a deep gloom, pillows at both ends of the bed showing that the residents sleep top to tail. The walls are decorated with yellowing theatre bills and rules of the house written by the landlady.
There are references to Dickensian poverty everywhere – in one corner was a battered writing desk resembling the one people associate with Scrooge, there is a small chair and a set of crutches for Tiny Tim, the chains of Marley’s ghost by the door.
A note told us that the family had gone out to join the crowds thronging at the news of t