Open today, 10am - 5pm. Free entry.

Home Galleries

Explore everyday experiences and ideas of home across the last 400 years.

Date

Permanent

Price

Free

Two framed paintings hang on patterned green and wallpaper; in the middle is a glass case displaying period chairs with ornate wallpaper.
Collections

About

Our home can be the physical space we live in or a feeling that goes beyond a specific time or place. In our Home Galleries, we explore the concept of home through people’s everyday experiences of making, keeping and being at home over the last 400 years.

Through a mix of contemporary and historical stories, the Home Galleries explore how we come to acquire the things that make up our homes and the hidden stories they reveal. 

Discover how we maintain our homes and the labour involved in keeping a household, whether it’s getting rid of bedbugs or using oxen’s gallbladders to clean carpets.

The galleries reveal how people spend time at home. Beginning with the idea of feeling at home, they look at the things we furnish our home with, our style and taste, and how our sense of home can be disrupted through loss or illness.

Explore leisure at home from music-making and broadcast entertainment to socialising and children’s play. The galleries also show how home can be a place of prayer, celebration and a space to express religious identity.

Compact cream‐walled room with a black metal bed with a rumpled plum-purple duvet under a white paper ceiling light shade on the left; In the centre, a young person is standing. On the right, a tall pine shelving unit and a window-side area hold a black printer, other electronics, and coiled cables.

Making Home

How we make our homes, from boats to bedrooms.
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Sepia-toned photograph of three women standing arm-in-arm. Each wears a cloche hat and a patterned top - the central figure, the mother, in a darker hat and geometric print, two daughters in lighter hats and floral and plaid dresses respectively.

Bought, Found, Given

The things we fill our homes with, and the stories that they tell.
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A close-up of a mother with her young daughter leaning on her shoulder looking straight into the camera; behind them, glimpses of their domestic space.

Shelf Life

A film about expressing identity through what’s on display in your home.
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Elaborate gold frame painting of two sisters in a richly decorated interio:r a red-haired girl in a blue dress stands with a violin standing on the left, while dark-haired girl sits in a white gown with an orange sash holding a white straw hat on the right, before patterned curtains and a leaded-glass window and by orange-red curtains and a matching carpet.

Style and Taste

How our homes define who we are and what others think of us.
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Black-and-white etching of a man in a long nightshirt and cap standing beside a curtained bed. He holds a small pan and uses a fork to prise insects or pests from the hanging bed drapes. A single candle on a slender three-legged stand illuminates the room, while discarded clothes lie scattered on the floor.

Housework

Keeping our homes clean and tidy is a job for everyone.
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An elderly woman sits on the left in a wooden folding chair in a sunlit garden, laughing with her hands in her lap. She wears a pale striped skirt and matching jacket over a cream top, with open toe shoes. Behind her, potted plants and flowering shrubs, including tall bushes with white blossoms, stand before a wooden fence.

In the Garden

The solace and comfort that Hackney elders find in their gardens.
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Victorian parlour: a man in a dark suit and frock coat reclines in a deep red velvet armchair, legs outstretched with one foot on the brass fireplace fender, drawing on a long, slender pipe. There are lace curtains by the window behind him; a small table piled with books on the right; framed artworks hang on the walls; a footstool and scattered playing cards lie on the patterned carpet.

Comfort

How our ideas of comfort have changed, from lighting to furniture.
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A woman kneels on a burgundy-and-cream prayer mat in a carpeted room, hands raised in supplication. She wears a mustard-coloured headscarf draped over a pale patterned fabric before a radiator beneath floral curtains. To the left, the wooden bedframe and the mattress are visible, with a white knitted beanie hanging from its post.

Faith

How we practise our faith at home.
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A teenage girl sits on the bed with her eyes closed in a brightly lit bedroom. The bed has a white coverlet and a red Pooh-themed throw blanket; beside her is a white tiger soft toy behind her, pale green walls are plastered with posters and photographs, and a wooden shelf holds folded clothes, CDs and a red alarm clock. A lace-curtained window with a teddy bear on its sill fills the left side of the frame.

Love and Loss

Home is a place where we might experience both positive and negative relationships.
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A family plays a tabletop game on a brown ottoman in a living room. On the left, a man in a striped polo shirt leans forward; in the centre, a young girl in a red dress reaches for a game piece; on the right, a woman in a navy-and-white striped top and red scarf watches with hands poised. A green wicker chair, blue sofa, and stereo system fill the background.

Entertainment

The games and devices that keep us entertained at home.
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Multiple white recipe cards with handwritten recipes pinned to a red panel by souvenir magnets - a Fry’s Chocolate fairy, a camel and pyramids, Stirling Castle, a steam train, and a sunset sailboat - each answering “What is your favourite meal to cook or eat at home?”

Table Talk

Take a seat at our kitchen table and tell us what home means to you.
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A hand holding up a smartphone displaying information and an image of a terraced house from 1978, with the actual display blurred in the background.

Free digital guide

Explore Museum of the Home with our digital guide on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app.

Discover the guide