At Home with the Soanes

Born in 1753, the son of a bricklayer, architect John Soane RA died in 1837 after a long and distinguished career. He designed 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields as his home and as a setting for his antiquities and works of art. After his wife's death, he lived here alone, constantly adding to and rearranging his collections. He established the house as a museum by Act of Parliament (1833) requiring that his romantic and poetic interiors be kept as they were at the time of his death.

Working in the Museum in Sir John Soane's houses at Nos. 12 and 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Susan Palmer became intrigued by questions about how the Soane family lived there two centuries ago. What did they eat? What did they drink? How did they keep warm? What was their social life like? What were their servants' daily duties? In the course of many years of research, she came up with the answers to these questions and many more.

At Home with the Soanes tells the story of the Soane family's social and domestic life. It paints a vivid picture of the Soanes' house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, their family life with their two children, and the below-stairs relationships of their servants. At Home with the Soanes is published to coincide with the reopening, for the first time since 1837, of the private apartments at Sir John Soane's Museum. The apartments, on the second floor of 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, include Soane's Bedroom and Bathroom, the Book Passage, the Oratory, Mrs Soane's Morning Room, and the Model Room.

These exquisite and intriguing spaces were dismantled after Soane's death in 1837 and pressed into service as staff accommodation and, later, offices. Their original contents – the models, model stands, pictures, and furniture – have spent nearly 200 years crammed into corners of various offices. The rooms have now been completely restored.