Keats House is a writer's house museum in what was once the home of the Romantic poet John Keats. It is in Keats Grove, Hampstead, in inner north London. Maps before about 1915

show the road with one of its earlier names, John Street; the road has also been known as Albion Grove. The building was originally a pair of semi-detached houses known as "Wentworth Place". John Keats lodged in one of them with his friend Charles Brown<!---Brown only took the middle name Armitage later in his life---> from December 1818 to May 1820, and then in the other half of the house with the Brawne family from August to September 1820. These were perhaps Keats's most productive years. According to Brown, "Ode to a Nightingale" was written under a plum tree in the garden.

While living in the house, Keats fell in love with and became engaged to Fanny Brawne, who lived with her family in the adjacent house. Keats became increasingly ill with tuberculosis and was advised to move to a warmer climate. He left London in 1820 and died, unmarried, in Italy the following year.

The house is a Grade I listed building. the piano manufacturer Charles Cadby (1858–1865); the physiologist Dr William Sharpey (1867–1875); and finally Reverend George Currey, Master of Charterhouse (1876). A Royal Society of Arts plaque<!---The plaque is red and made of encaustic ware---> was added in 1896 to commemorate Keats.

The house remained in nearly continuous occupation until the 20th century, when it was threatened with demolition. The house was saved by subscription and opened to the public as the Keats Memorial House on 9 May 1925.

In July and August 2009, the museum once again hosted Keats in Hampstead, a performance piece about Keats's life in Hampstead, his poetry, prose and his love for Fanny Brawne.

Museum

thumb|upright|[[Keats Listening to a Nightingale on Hampstead Heath by Joseph Severn, 1845]]

The building next door, within the grounds of the house, occupies the space where the kitchen garden and outhouses were; it was also the site of a later coach house. It was opened on 16 July 1931 as the 'Keats Museum and Branch Library', housing both a public library and a room to display artifacts from the Keats House collection. Some of these artifacts were donated by Charles Armitage Brown's descendants in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the town to which Charles Brown emigrated in the last year of his life. The Heath Branch Public Library closed in March 2012. The building, which is part of the Keats House Trust administered by the City of London Corporation, reopened in April 2012 as "Ten Keats Grove". A volunteer-run library currently<!---June 2012---> occupies part of the space in the building.

Artifacts on display in the house include the engagement ring Keats offered to Fanny Brawne and a copy of Keats's death mask.<!---Lock of hair is not always on display.---> The museum runs regular poetry and literary events, and offers a range of educational facilities. In December 2006 it was announced that the house was to benefit from a restoration programme partly financed by a £424,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Keats House was closed on 1 November 2007 and reopened on Friday, 24 July 2009, some six months after the projected re-opening.

Garden: the Mulberry tree

The tree is a Common or Black Mulberry and believed to date from the 17th century. Mulberry trees have been cultivated in England since at least the early 16th century but are not native to Great Britain. As there were other fruit trees in the grounds of Keats House, the mulberry tree may have been part of an orchard. If the tree is as old as it is thought to be, then John Keats would have seen it, although he did not mention it in his writings. Keats did mention a white mulberry tree once in a July 1818 letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds.

Location

The house is on the south side of Keats Grove between St John's Church on Downshire Hill and South End Road in Hampstead, London NW3 2RR. The nearest stations are Hampstead Heath railway station on London Overground, and Belsize Park and Hampstead tube stations both on the Northern line, Edgware branch. From central London, red bus route 24 terminates at South End Green, Hampstead, close to the house and marked as 275 at the bottom right of the area map.

See also

  • Keats-Shelley Memorial House, Rome, Italy

Further reading

  • Keats House guidebooks. 9 editions, issued between 1925 and 1990.
  • Page, Kenneth. "Wentworth Place: ‘A Small Cottage, Pleasantly Situate’". In: Turley, Richard Marggraf (Ed.) Keats's Places. Cham (Switzerland). Palgrave Macmillan. 2018.

Notes and references

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;References

  • Keats House, Hampstead: Official website
  • Keats-Shelley Memorial House, Rome
  • The Keats Foundation
  • Victoria County History Vol. 9: Hampstead
  • Images of Keats House at the English Heritage Archive
  • Keats House Museum on Facebook
  • Keats House Museum on Instagram