Eastend of London: Vagina Museum, Museum of the Home, and Hackney City Farm

We have just finished day 4 in London but I will start with my Day 1, when I explored some of Eastend London while Sylvia rested.  I set out to see as many of 5 museums as possible.  I managed to see the Vagina Museum and the Museum of the Home with an unexpected visit to Hackney City Farm. Both museums missed some of the permanent museums but I loved exploring a part of London that I don't know well.

I know, I know!  The Vagina museum sounds more like a dodgy internet site than insight and culture.  I have followed them on social media after stumbling upon an interesting post and finding their stories fascinating, especially with regard to feminist history.  For those unaware, the history of biology has focused on male anatomy so shining a light on female anatomy is both interesting and challenging.  The museum is below the railway near Bethnell Green Road.

I had hoped to see some interesting history in the museum but the permanent displays were closed due to renovations.  So I just saw the temporary exhibition on Endiometriosis.  It was small but more interesting that I had expected. 

The exhibition gave an insight into the experience of endiometriosis.  As with the intention of the museum generally, it gave information on an issue that is not discussed a lot and fostered empathy for others by creating an understanding of the spectrum of experiences.  The above part of the exhibition gives examples of pads needed for "normal" periods vs those needed for those with endiometriosis.  Can you guess which stack is for which?

Walking from the Vagina Museum to the Museum of the Home, I happened across the Hackney City Farm.  It reminded me of CERES in Melbourne.  It was a rural oasis in the midst of a city with cafe, farming and community activities.  I hadn't had lunch so I stopped at the cafe first.  It felt very homely with mismatched wooden tables and chairs, flowers on tables and cheerful coloured circles hanging above the counter.

Signs said that they made the sourdough bread on site and had locally made tofu. so I ordered the (vegan) Tofu Lover Sandwich.  It came with pan-fried tofu, aubergine and home-made pesto.  I also had excellent strawberry and mint house soda.  My sandwich came with a lot of tofu.  It was a medium soft tofu which was heated but not crispy fried.  I could not quite eat all of it but once reduced to one slice in the sandwich it went really well with the perfectly cooked aubergine and lovely flavoured pesto.

Then I had a wander around the farm. As is so often the case in the UK, it was even more attractive for the heritage buildings that were an organic part of the site.

I really loved this mosaic in the garden area.

The sow had had piglets so we were able to watch them snuffling about in the straw.  There was even a heat lamp for the wee piggies.

I also saw roosters, ducks, donkeys and goats.  I loved the signs telling us the names of all the animals.  I could only see the goats and kids from a far but was able to read their names which included Salted Caramel, Yoda and Saffron.

It is not a community space without some fun artwork.  I think this painting was on a shed.  As I left I could see two men either side of a long saw that they were using to cut a large log.  From the conversation I gathered they were there for a workshop rather than this being their life.

I passed this artwork on a nearby building.

And being my first full day in London for over 20 years, I could not resist a red telephone booth photo.

Next was the Museum of the Home (136 Kingsland Road, E2. 8EA) just off the Hackney Road  I had fond memories of visiting when I lived in London and it was called the Geoffrye Museum.  I didn't quite follow the intended path and saw some of the exhibits out of order but it did not matter.  The Gardens through Time were beautiful.  I am sure they are very pretty in Summer when all the flowers are in bloom and herbs but I do love the bleakness of a winter garden.

The gardens were very British in plots with stone walls in between.  This formal symmetry of the Tudor knot garden was so different to the more informal gardens of recent years.

Then inside to the Home Galleries which explored ideas of making, keeping and feeling at home.  Like the Vagina Museum there was a thread of subversiveness.  From the text it seemed that I was not the only one to shudder at the case of vacuum cleaners over time.  I was a lot more cheered by the above poster which took pages from the early reader books about Jane and Peter, but finished with a page that many of us would have loved to have seen with her thinking about getting out of these sexist books to give broader examples of what we might do.

A lot of these galleries were Twentieth Century but also included older paintings and delved further back into history to demonstrate how we lived.  I really loved the oral history style stories about people's experience of homes that had been collected over the last few decades by the museum.  But also displays such as the above were interesting with a little interactive button to demonstrate the very noticeable difference between candlelight, gaslight and electric lights.  While electric light is much brighter, it lacks some of the ambience of former lighting.

Another interesting interactive display was this sniff and guess how items such as apples and beast's gall were used to clean.

This calm space was lovely but I can't remember exactly what the painting was meant to represent.

Then I moved on to the Rooms Through Time.  This is the part of the museum I remember fondly.  Rooms are set up as they would have been at moments in time over 400 years.  

This room was the first: a Hall in 1630.

A Parlour in 1695.

A Parlour in 1745.

The Rooms Through Time also included some panels on Rhymes through Time.  This one delighted me with its questioning of neatness.  The concept of neatness was linked with respectability.

A Parlour in 1790.

Another Rhyme in Time.  This one question the roles of woman, an issue that is closely linked with the home and women's roles as beauties, hostesses, and homemakers.

A Drawing Room in 1830.

I was sad that the next drawing rooms (1870s, 1915, 1937, 1970s and 1998) were undergoing refurbishment and were not available to the public.  All these rooms can be seen on the Rooms Through Time pages of their website.

Lastly here is the plaque to Sir Robert Geffrye who had bequeathed the money for the museum and his name.  It seems that the name was changed recently the Museum of the Home because it was clearer but it does seem interesting that his statue is being moved because he was to be given less prominence due to his role as a slave owner.  The museum shows some progressive ideas of bringing the lives of women and slaves to the fore.  I am happy to see that Geffrye is not being wiped from the history pages at the museum but that it is quite clear where he got his money that created the museum and to make sure the story of slaves was told from their point of view.  The museum is not only a great insight into ordinary past and present lives but also housed in an amazing building (see top photo) that was once alms houses.

And as I found myself at the end of the museum's available exhibitions, it was time to find a bus and go home.