London, day 3, July 24th ~ Hogarth's House

I left Chiswick House and Gardens behind and made my way back to the underground station. As i had planned earlier that day, i paid a visit to Hogarth's House which lies at Hogarth lane. 

The house was built between 1713 and 1717 and was bought by the Hogarth's in 1749. They used it as a country refuge. Today it is really hard to imagine it as a rural area as now the A4 runs by with 3 lanes on each side. But in the 18th century it still was a village and the house was built in the corner of an orchard. Thankfully even today there is still a little garden adjacent to the house. 

I had entered the premises via the little garden gate and walked up to the house through the garden.

The house belonged to the Hogarth family until 1808 and then had different owners before it was put up for auction in 1901. It was bought by Lieutenant-Colonel Robert William Shipway who restored it together with Frederick William Peel and Henry Austin Dobson. As far as i understand the first was an architect while the latter was William Hogarth's biographer. he was the one who provided a collection of Hogarth's works and also commissioned replica furniture. It opened its doors to visitors in 1904. (source: Wikipedia)

The house was damaged in 1940 in WWII but was repaired and reopened in 1951. More refurbishments happened on 1997 and in 2008. It re-opened again in 2011 and this is how it looks today:

Admission to the house is free and it is a lovely place to visit. You can see a selection of prints of the works by William Hogarth and you get an idea about what life was like back then. 

A little gem well worth a visit and it was ideal for a combined visit to Chiswick House & Gardens. 

Then i made my way back to central London, back to the hustle and bustle. I was supposed to meet a friend who i met online and who i had never seen personally before. When deciding for a meeting point i had said, since we hadn't seen each other before, maybe a not so busy place would be good. I added that Trafalgar Square might not be such a good idea ;) And what did he suggest? Covent Garden .. ah ... much better, not many people there. LOL
Suprisingly enough though, we did meet without any problems or searching, amazing! We went to the Lyceum Tavern at Strand.

At first we sat outside in a not very lovely area but it allowed me to vape. But then a slight drizzle set in and we went inside and found ourselves a very cosy niche where we sat for a a good 3 hours and had a nice chat. It was a really lovely first meeting and the talk was easy and so time went by pretty quickly. After we said our goodbye, i went back to Covent Garden because i still needed some souvenirs to bring home. One friend wanted a card case, another a mug and yet another had asked for a t-shirt for her daughter. So i started to go souvenir hunting. Not really something i fancied to do but on the other hand i wanted to give my friends some joy. I went to the museum's shop of the Transport Museum but there was only one card-case design and moreover that one was really expensive. My friend had once bought such a case with the Beatles for £1, he said if i can find a decent design .. Beatles, Bowie, Stones whatever ... i could buy several for that price as they wear off pretty quickly. Now, the Transport Museum of course only had the tube map design and it was £ 6. I decided to look elsewhere. I walked to Trafalgar Square. 

and from there took the bus to Piccadilly Circus. Yes, i know it is only 1 stop and i know it is walkable. But by then i had already done a lot of walking and so i opted for a bus. This one would have been nice :) 

At Piccadilly Circus i went to Best Of Britain and Cool Britannia. OMG, these kind of shops are real hell for me. So that was a real sacrifice. But all for my friends! Best of Britain provided the mug and the t-shirt. It was much harder to get such card holder. These things had been everywhere before but this year they were really hard to find. My friend had said as long as it is not Justin Bieber or Kanye West .. pretty everything else goes. Ha, the problem was, once i found some at Cool Britannia, it was exactly this stuff which was available. Real teen things. The only half decent one i could find was Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols and it was £ 5 .. but okay, i took this one. (Later at Baker Street i checked the Beatles Store and that "It's only Rock'n'Roll" shop and they had card holders with the Beatles (obviously) and Pink Floyd, for example, but the days seem to be over when they were sold for £ 1 each (as my friend remembered). Maybe i would have been lucky at Camden Market but this time i didn't go there. (i don't like going there anymore, anyway) 

I went back home to Baker Street, got me some take away from Pret A Manger and headed to my beloved Regent's Park to enjoy my supper there. And so another lovely day came to an end.