Freud's House, Keats' House and Hampstead Heath
After weeks of urban living and weekend visits to even
more cities, Mike and I were desperate for some green space. We’d had a taste in Regent’s Park, quite near our
flat in Marylebone, when we went to see Taming of the Shrew one evening. The huffing of the lions from the zoo nearby added
some drama to the play. But other than the lions Regents is rather tame, and we were looking for something just a bit less
domesticated. Since I wanted to see Keats’ house anyway, it seemed logical to pay a visit to Hampstead Heath. Freud’s
house is near the Heath, too, so we stopped there first, winding up a steep hill to Maresfield Gardens past a Catholic elementary
school where riotous soccer kids in the throes of World Cup Fever were recreating the playoffs at high volume.
Freud’s House is mostly his daughter Anna’s
house; her father lived there for only a short time at the end of his life after Germany’s annexation of Austria drove
him from Vienna late in 1938. Freud got out early enough and with influence enough, to take most of his belongings with him,
including his famous couch, and every effort was made to recreate his Vienna digs in London. Freud’s daughter Anna lived
in the house until her death in 1982, after which the house was made into a museum.
As a house it must have been comfortable and even inviting,
but as a museum it’s a bit too much of a shrine, and one that has gone a bit shabby since Freudian theory has fallen
out of favor. The nicest surprise is the number of quality antiquities from Freud’s personal collection: there are beautiful
little Egyptian and Summerian deities, and plenty of demons too, as in any human psyche. They could have done with better
labeling, but that’s not the point of the museum, which seems to be struggling to redefine itself to accommodate the
Jungian vogue.
The contemporary artwork with pseudo-Freudian themes
does nothing for the dignity of the handsome 19th c building, nor I would argue, for the life’s work of a
major historical figure. I have no idea why they have chosen to display these works, unless it’s that you can
buy prints of them in the bookstore. Similarly, instead of placards defining the objects in the rooms (BC or AD? Late Greek
or Early Roman? ) or providing details of Freud’s life, you get lengthy accounts of dreams…not even Freud’s
dreams…that read like case histories in self-help books. Other peoples’ dreams are never as fascinating as your
own.
Not to be too Freudian about it, but there also seems
to be a kind of fetishism going on: in some rooms nothing has been moved, except presumably to dust, since Anna’s death:
her sewing notions, (threads, packets of needles and the like) just sit there on the table. Her father’s study is thick
with allergens, like an old unkempt bookstore, and a continuous loop video plays mid-1970s interviews with people who knew
Freud only peripherally, while initiates in the audience nod or shake their heads knowingly. In short, it’s a little
weird.
Poet John Keats’ house is not treated quite so
reverentially, but it can’t be because there is not much of the actual Keats here. Rooms have been re-furnished, not
enshrined. The bed is as it could have looked; the little table is original to the house, but the chair is similar to one
he might have had. There are some artifacts, mostly of Fanny Brawne, the poet’s ladylove who wore Keats’ engagement
ring until the day she died, despite having gone on to marry a few years after his death. Still, it’s pretty cool to
see the place Keats worked, to know that Coleridge sat in this very room, and to read Keats’ whimsical poem about his
landlady’s cat. Writing workshops are held here on a regular basis (one was going on when we visited) and the house
is very much alive, if a bit shabby overall. The place is small and comfortable, surrounded by charming raggedy cottage-style
gardens, and it would be really easy to live here, even now. I said so to the docent, and she explained there was a lot of
"positive energy" in the house "particularly at this time of year" which ok, was a little weird too, I guess.
Both Freud’s house and Keats’ house are near
an area known as Hampstead Heath, a public green space with over 800 acres of woods, trails and ponds that has the much the
character of Central Park in NYC. It serves the same kind of function, too. Londoners use the space for picnics, concerts
and games, and as a place to run children and dogs. There are bathing ponds just for men (gay I understand) and mixed ponds
(dirty loud and heterosexual) and ponds just for women (mostly lesbian, but clean, so why quibble?) And there are trails for
bikes, horses, or just walking. Like Central Park, it’s easy to get lost here, so it helps to have a map. We hiked ourselves
pleasantly to the point of exhaustion then made our way to Kenwood House, a 17th-18th c manor house
with sprawling grounds where sheep used to graze. The house and gardens were left to the nation in 1927 and it’s now
a British Heritage site. The Neoclassical house has gorgeous interiors with wide sweeping staircases and a 17th
c Orangery that’s now a café. But we were after the art.
The last owner of Kenwood, brewing magnate Edward
Cecil Guinness, was an avid art collector, and the place houses a Rembrandt self portrait and a pretty little Vermeer that
we especially wanted to see. This Vermeer is "The Guitar Player" which was stolen by the IRA in 1974. The guard explained
that the surface damage we saw came from the circumstances of its recovery: it was left exposed to the elements, against a
gravestone in St. Bartholomew’s cemetery. The curator of Kenwood wrapped the painting in newspaper and brought it back
to the museum on the Tube. Our trip back to the Tube station was faster than the climb up to Kenwood, being mostly downhill.
The route took us through some pretty side streets in the Hampstead Wells area, an area that was a famous 17th
century spa. Spring water was marketed for its curative powers on Flask Walk, now a posh residential area. Several houses
along the street have blue oval plaques designating historic homes, and we passed the painter John Constable’s house
and The Flask, a present-day pub that was once the bottling facility for the spa.
