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The Handel House Museum in London was the home of composer George Frideric Handel until his death in 1759. The Handel House Trust opened the museum in 2001, recreating the interior of Handel’s home as it was in 1723. The museum also includes rooms where Jimi Hendrix once lived.
The Handel House Museum was once the home of George Frideric Handel, the famous German composer of Baroque music. He lived in the house on Brook Street in London for more than three decades, until his death in his bedroom on 14 April 1759, and his remains were buried in Westminster Abbey. Handel rented the house and never tried to buy it, but he was the house’s first inhabitant after it was built. The Handel House Museum is the only one of its kind in London dedicated exclusively to the life of a single composer.
An organization called the Handel House Trust began renting out part of the house in 2000 and opened the doors of the Handel House Museum to the public the following year. Lovers of the unexplainable appreciate the story that the ghost of a woman, complete with perfume, once materialized within the walls of Handel’s house, during a time when the trust was preparing the museum for public viewing. A British journalist’s account of the sighting stated that officials decided to perform an exorcism. Another famous musician in the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix, lived next door to Handel’s house and reportedly saw the apparition. The Handel House Museum now also occupies rooms in the house where Jimi Hendrix once lived.
The Handel House Museum is located in elegant Mayfair, above a shop, but in Handel’s time it was a district designed for the middle class. A plaque commemorating Handel, the Baroque composer, has been installed on the upper level. Another plaque stands nearby commemorating Jimi Hendrix, the rock legend. At the time of the museum’s opening and the plaques being installed, some neighbors felt that the rock guitarist’s plaque should not be mounted because he did not reside there for long, unlike Handel, who stayed there for 36 years.
The trust has recreated the interior of Handel’s home to look as much as possible as it did in 1723, when the composer moved in aged 38. His bedroom has been recreated with a crimson-clad four-poster bed, and a reproduction harpsichord can be found in Handel’s Rehearsal Room. Some modern facilities have been added, such as an elevator.
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