Photo: londondrum.comUseful things to know before your visit
Address: Handel & Hendrix in London, 25 Brook Street, Mayfair W1K 4HB. Telephone: 0207 495 1685. Website: handelhendrix.org
How much do the tickets cost?
You can buy adults tickets from £14, and children (13-17 years) from £5. Children (under-13 and part of a family, max 6 people) are free.
What are the opening hours?
Opening times are 10am to 5pm (Wed-Sun). Last entry is 1 hour before closing time.
How much time do you need?
A typical visit to Handel & Hendrix in London takes 1½ hours.
Which buses go to Handel & Hendrix in London?
Bus routes 6, 7, 10, 13, 23, 73, 94, 98, 137, 139, 159 and 390 all stop close by.
Which is the closest train station?
The nearest station is Oxford Circus, which connects with the Bakerloo Central and Victoria lines. You can walk the ¼ mile to Handel & Hendrix in London in about 5 minutes.
Which other attractions are nearby?
Here are four attractions within 15 minutes walk of Handel & Hendrix in London: Carnaby Street, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington Arcade and Wallace Collection.
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Imagine living next-door to these two – you’d have Handel blasting his music at you during the day and Jimi shaking the walls at night. You’d be forever banging on the wall trying to get some kip.
After making his name in Germany Handel came over to England and started working for the Royal court. Whenever they put together a list of our greatest-ever composers he never gets a look-in but let’s give him a break… he was over here for fifty years, signed up as a citizen, wrote our Coronation anthem, and earned himself a burial in Westminster Abbey. It’s about time we claimed him as our own!
George Frideric Handel’s 18th-century townhouse
Back in those days 25 Brook Street had a basement, three storeys and an attic, but in the centuries that followed the bottom was converted into a shop. The museum has now managed to buy it all back and decorated the rooms in the spartan style of the Georgian era… and it really is spartan because there’s hardly anything in it.
Photo: londondrum.comThe dining room has an old organ and harpsichord, but neither of them were his. None of his 18th-century furniture has survived either, and the only thing he’d recognise as being genuine are the creaking timbers on the wonky wooden staircase.
The dressing room just has a gloomy old bookcase and a white wig on a table. They’ve made a bit more effort in the bedroom with some crimson-coloured drapes around a four-poster bed, but it’s just a period piece from another house. By the time you get up there you’re just a few walls away from the Jimi Hendrix flat and his thumping music will start to overpower the backing track of Handel’s arias, which results in a rather bizarre musical mashup.
Photo: londondrum.comIf you want to learn about Handel’s life then you can either read the placards, press the pictures on your touchscreen machine, or strike up a conversation with one of the experts who are standing guard in every room.
Jimi Hendrix’s 1960s upstairs flat
Back in the 18th-century Handel’s neighbours were all upper class viscounts and aristocrat MPs, but if he’d stuck around another two hundred years then he would have had a much more musical neighbour – Jimi Hendrix. He came over to London in 1966 and moved into the top flat in 1968. Within another couple of years he’d recorded Hey Joe, Purple Haze, Are You Experienced and promptly passed away – squeezing his entire career into just four short years.
Photo: londondrum.comYou will immediately know it’s Jimi’s flat when you step through the door because the first room has been pasted over with quotes, concert pictures and album covers – it’s a bit like walking through the pages of a music magazine. The only room that’s actually been left alone is his living room/bedroom, but even that’s a restoration – pieced together from the hundreds of film reels and photos that were taken while he gave interviews on the bed.
Photo: londondrum.comThey’ve placed a red bed in there (basically just a mattress on the floor), draped some feathers over the pictures, hung some rugs up on the walls, scattered some wine glasses around the floor, and there’s a battered box of Monopoly and a little TV in the corner (apparently he liked watching Coronation Street), but it’s just like the Handel House – it’s all fake. The only item he actually owned in real life is the oval mirror hanging over the fireplace.
Unfortunately you don’t really get the sense that it’s his flat anymore because all of the other rooms have been turned into exhibition spaces. You can’t see his original kitchen or bathroom, for example, not even his front door – it’s just a few rooms with posters and headphones and a clothes rack so you can dress up like Jimi if you want, but that’s about it.
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Harris Are you allowed to take photos inside whilst lying on Jimi’s bed? (reply)
Craig Hi Harris. You can definitely take photos inside but they’re not going to allow you to lie on Jimi’s bed. That’s hallowed ground! (reply)
janet Do they still hold concert recitals here? Do you know the dates of when they’re taking place? (reply)
Craig Hi Janet. At the time of writing they’ve all been cancelled because of this horrible pandemic, but they do still hold classical music concerts here. When they’re up and running again you can see what’s on here: handelhendrix.org/whats-on/ (reply)
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