Leighton House Museum

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George Frederic Watts RA, Portrait of Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A, 1888.

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Though the artist Frederick Leighton belongs to the late Victorian era, rather than the time of my stories, I decided to visit his house in Kensington again (we’d toured it several years ago) because artists’ residences are interesting, especially those of 19th century artists. Not all were starving in garrets, as Leighton House demonstrates.

Born to wealth, Leighton was one who did not fret about where his next meal was coming from. He was able to furnish his house with treasures from around the world. One of several additions was the Arab Hall: "More expensive to build than the whole of the original house, on completion in 1882 it caused a sensation,” according to the museum’s brochure. It still does.

To my great regret, I can’t offer a reel of the Arab Hall, thanks to a miscommunication at the time of our visit. However, these images at the museum website should give you an idea.

Still, I think the Staircase Hall (reel below) is pretty impressive, too.

Video of the Staircase Hall at Leighton House

Below are a few other images, to give you an idea of Leighton’s taste. #1 & #2 Architect George Atchinson, with whom Leighton worked on the house from the time he acquired the empty plot until shortly before his death; #3 a pair of marble columns on the ground (U.S. first) floor; #4 the Drawing Room (since Leighton’s studio was his reception room, this infrequently used room was the “withdrawing room” for Leighton’s women guests, after dinner); #5 & #6 the Drawing Room’s Murano glass chandelier; #7 & #8 Leighton’s painting, Eucharis (Girl with a Basket of Fruit); #9 & #10 one of the pair of beautiful bookcases in the first floor (U.S. second floor) Studio; #11 & #12 the German marquety table, also in the Studio; #13, #14, #15 the Antechamber, containing a mashrabiya, a pierced wooden screen; #16 Loretta showing off in the Silk Room, the last change Leighton made to his house, and which he used as a gallery for pictures by his artist friends.

If you’d like to see what his house was like when Leighton was alive, you might take a look at this Strand Magazine article of 1892.

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The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

You’d think, given all the research I did for Mr. Impossible—not to mention my lifelong fascination with Egyptology—that I would have known all about the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaelogy. But I wrote that book quite a few years ago, when most of my research happened with books, and what was available online, while immensely helpful, wasn’t a fraction of what we find today.

That has to explain why it was such a surprise to discover it—by accident, no less—while looking for another museum around the corner, also part of University College London. The collection includes more than 80,000 objects. We did as much as we could in two phases, before and after lunch, and the boatload of photos below, will, I hope, give you an idea of what’s there.

Amelia Edwards, whose bust and book appear in the photo gallery, was an important source for me. The museum notes, as I realized while writing my book, that her attitude and prejudices reflect her time. This is bound to happen with research. So the trick is to aim for authenticity with hints here and there of the attitudes—because they offer important insights into the times—but to keep the not-so-pleasant stuff subdued. At the same time, I do try not to sound too 21st century, because I don’t want to jar readers out of the world I’ve created. Still, all writers reflect their times. That’s as true of me as it is of Amelia Edwards or any of the numerous other authors whose work I consulted.

As to the artifacts: The museum doesn’t have an elaborate guidebook, so the information is limited to what we (meaning my husband, under my command) could photograph, and I am not an Egyptologist, so I can’t offer further enlightenment. I can tell you one thing: Generally speaking, it’s believed that the shabtis—those little figurines—were meant to serve the deceased in the afterlife.

Again, you will find very brief videos on my Facebook and Instagram Author pages.

The London Transport Museum

Characters have to get from one place to another. In the time of my stories, they could travel on horseback, in a private carriage (or lesser vehicle, like a farm cart), or via public transport. Though I’ve spent time before at the London Transport Museum, I always discover something I’ve missed or forgotten. And this visit offered a fresh opportunity to share a bit of this wonderful museum, and perhaps help readers visualize the world of my stories.

London was a vastly different, and definitely smaller, place then. Kensington was “the Old Court Suburb,” and the Notting Hill of My Inconvenient Duke was rural, with gravel pits and piggeries and brick making. I’m currently staying in Notting Hill, among antique shops and not-inexpensive clothing stores and fine restaurants. The “Porto Bello Lane” of my story is Portobello Road, crowded on market days with dealers and tourists. Shops and housing line the streets.

I can hop on a bus a short walk from my place, while an almost-as-short walk takes me to a Tube Station.

My characters had to travel via other means, but, given the traffic, not necessarily more speedily. Depending on the time of day, I suspect the bus would move only a little more quickly than Blackwood and Alice did.

Some notes about the images:

The museum includes not only prints of construction under way in London, but also scale models. And let us bear in mind that virtually all of this work was done by hand, with a few mechanical devices to help. Artist George Scharf made many drawings of numerous demolition and construction projects in London. It’s the closest we can come to photographs, before photography happened. You can find many of his works in the British Museum’s online collection.

The horse is all-important throughout the Regency and Victorian eras. Although the photograph of the stables is much later than the time of my stories, it gives a sense of the great number of horses needed for the various kinds of transport. Huge stables like these filled vast blocks in and about the coaching inns. At a future date, I hope to show a map of the George Inn, which Alice and Blackwood visit in search of Jonesy . Today, one may see a remnant—a rare example of the galleried coaching inns—and a fraction of what one would have encountered in its heyday.

If you’ve been subscribing to this blog for a while, you’ve probably seen the image of a hackney cabriolet before. When I mention vehicles speeding along the London streets or “occasionally throwing out passengers,” this is the vehicle. It’s a nice model of a single-passenger vehicle, but there were cabs that could hold two people, not very comfortably.

Once again, I have to apologize for the randomness of some of the images. My available technology while traveling is limited, and procedures possible on my laptop are not possible on my tablet. This is why—among other things—the omnibus information and images are not in proper sequence.