Keats House ☆☆☆

The Keats House Museum in Hampstead (Photo by Cj1340)
The Keats House Museum in Hampstead
The Keats House Museum in Hampstead, Keats House, London (Photo by Cj1340)
A room in the Keats House Museum in Hampstead, Keats House, London (Photo by Luke McKernan)
A display in the kitchen of Keats' Hamptead home, Keats House, London (Photo by Luke McKernan)
Portrait of John Keats (c. 1822) by William Hilton the Younger, in London's National Portrait Gallery, Keats House, London (Photo in the Public Domain)

The house in Hampstead where John Keats wrote his most famous poems and met his love, Fanny Brawne

The Romantic poet John Keats lived in the front parlor of this lilywhite Regency villa in Hampstead, known as "Wentworth Place," from December 1818 to September 1820, along with his friend Charles Brown.

Keats paid Brown a monthly rent of £5 (£250 in modern prices) plus "half the liquor bill."

Holograph of Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," written in May 1819It was here that Keats wrote his most famous works, chief among them his series of odes including "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale," which Brown caimed Keats penned while sitting under a plum tree in the garden. (For the record, nearby Spanairds Inn pub, which Keats frequented, claims the same honor for a tree in its garden.)

It was also here that Keats met and fell in love with the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, whom he initially described as "beautiful, elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange."

The two were soon engaged to be married (the ring is here at the museum), but with Keat's tuberculosis worsening, he traveled to the warmer climate of Italy hoping for a cure. John Keats died in Rome, in a pink house overlooking the Spanish Steps, in February of 1821. He was 25 years old.

The museum retains a cast of Keats' death mask.

Tips

Guided tours

Museum docents lead 30-minute free tours at 3pm.

How long should I spend at the Keats House?

If you are paying the admission, I imagine you are a Keats fan to begin with, so expect to spend at least half an hour here.

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