Did two tours this week...First one was at Dennis Sever's House in Spitalfields on Monday evening. I was ready to be shown an interesting take on living in the past as the house is billed as a step back into time. But get this description from their website:
"Whether you see it or you don't - the house's ten rooms harbour ten 'spells' that engage the visitor's imagination in moods that dominated the periods between 1724 and 1914. Your senses are your guide."
Things get weirder still as you walked around the house in the semi-darkness and relative silence, with no tour guides or brochures to explain what you were seeing. Instead all we got was cryptic notes laid around, like:
"...the Kitchen - which addresses your simplest state of consciousness: your Soul. Here - in every object - form and function are at one, so that with nothing to explain, you may simply "be". N.B. - like a contented infant."
Huh? It wasn't til I caught a whiff of 'spliff' that I realized the people running this place have smoked a few too many joints in their lives and have transcended reality to somewhere in pot heaven.
Next tour was still on the theme of drugs, but slightly more legal. It was the Apothecaries Hall, where the society of Apothecaries began their trade centuries ago near Blackfriars. It was a treasure trove of mortar and pestles and some other interesting tools of the trade (including a
scraper they used to bleed people).
I didn't take photos at either place, but I did get this one sent to me of an apothecary table and items.
"Whether you see it or you don't - the house's ten rooms harbour ten 'spells' that engage the visitor's imagination in moods that dominated the periods between 1724 and 1914. Your senses are your guide."
Things get weirder still as you walked around the house in the semi-darkness and relative silence, with no tour guides or brochures to explain what you were seeing. Instead all we got was cryptic notes laid around, like:
"...the Kitchen - which addresses your simplest state of consciousness: your Soul. Here - in every object - form and function are at one, so that with nothing to explain, you may simply "be". N.B. - like a contented infant."
Huh? It wasn't til I caught a whiff of 'spliff' that I realized the people running this place have smoked a few too many joints in their lives and have transcended reality to somewhere in pot heaven.
Next tour was still on the theme of drugs, but slightly more legal. It was the Apothecaries Hall, where the society of Apothecaries began their trade centuries ago near Blackfriars. It was a treasure trove of mortar and pestles and some other interesting tools of the trade (including a
scraper they used to bleed people).I didn't take photos at either place, but I did get this one sent to me of an apothecary table and items.
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