Leighton House Museum 12 Holland Park Rd, Kensington, London W14 8LZ, UK

The Leighton House Museum is in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea in London. The painter Frederic, Lord Leighton commissioned the architect and designer George Aitchison to build him a combined home and studio.

Leighton House Museum is the former home of the Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). The only purpose-built studio-house open to the public in the United Kingdom, it is one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth century, containing a fascinatingcollection of paintings and sculpture by Leighton and his contemporaries.

Built to Leighton’s precise requirements, the house was extended and embellished over the 30 years that he lived in it. From modest beginnings it grew into a ‘private palace of art’ featuring the extraordinary Arab Hall with its golden dome, intricate mosaics and walls lined with beautiful Islamic tiles. Upstairs, Leighton’s vast painting studio was one of the sights of London, filled with paintings in different stages of completion, the walls hung with examples of his work and lit by a great north window.  Many of the most prominent figures of the Victorian age were entertained in this room; including Queen Victoria herself who called on Leighton in 1859. But Leighton lived alone in his palace, occupying the house’s only bedroom on the first floor.

Leighton House Museum is surrounded by a group of other studio-houses, all of which were built during the second half of the nineteenth century. This group provides a unique insight into the wealth, status and taste of successful artists in the late-Victorian period.

GENERAL ACCESS

Leighton House Museum is open daily from 10am to 5:30pm, except Tuesdays.

Last entry at 5pm; garden will close at 5pm

Free Public Tours of the house every Wednesday and Sunday at 3pm included within the entry ticket

Access

• Disabled visitors and carers are admitted at concessionary rate.
• Regrettably there is no step-free, or wheelchair access to any part of the house.
• There are two flights of internal steps. The lower part of the staircase does not have a handrail.
• Guide and assistance-dogs are permitted in the museum.
• The lighting levels are low throughout the house, for conservation reasons. 
• No photography is allowed in the house.
• Two parking spaces are available for Disabled Blue Badge holders near the house.
• Prams and pushchairs are not permitted in the museum to protect the delicate interiors. They can be left in the Reception or Lobby.