{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2015}} {{Use British English|date=August 2015}} {{Infobox museum | name = The Carlyles' House | image = Thomas Carlyle House - 24 Cheyne Row Chelsea London SW3 5HL.jpg | image_upright = | alt = | caption = Photograph of the Carlyles' House, 2015 | map_type = United Kingdom London Kensington and Chelsea | map_relief = | map_size = | map_caption = | coordinates = {{coord|51|29|3.48|N|0|10|12|W|display=inline,title}} | established = <!-- {{Start date|YYYY|MM|DD|df=y}} --> | dissolved = <!-- {{End date|YYYY|MM|DD|df=y}} --> | location = Cheyne Row<br />London, {{postcode|SW|3}}<br />United Kingdom | type = Historic house museum | accreditation = | key_holdings = | collections = | collection_size = | visitors = | founder = | director = | president = | ceo = | chairperson = | curator = | architect = | historian = | owner = National Trust | public_transit = {{rail-interchange|london|underground}} {{lus|South Kensington}}<br />{{rail-interchange|london|overground}} {{rail-interchange|gb|Rail}} {{rws|Imperial Wharf}}<br />{{rail-interchange|london|river}} Cadogan Pier | parking = Limited metered street parking | network = | website = {{URL|www.nationaltrust.org.uk/carlyles-house}} | embedded = {{Infobox designation list | embed = yes | designation1 = Grade II* | designation1_offname = | designation1_type = | designation1_criteria = | designation1_date = 24 June 1954 | delisted1_date = | designation1_partof = | designation1_number = {{NHLE|num=1358142|short=yes}} | designation1_free1name = Building type | designation1_free1value = Georgian terraced house | designation1_free2name = Open: Yearly | designation1_free2value = March–October | designation1_free3name = Open: Weekly | designation1_free3value = Wednesday-Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays }} }}
'''The Carlyles' House''', in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, central London, was the home of the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane from 1834 until his death. The home of these writers was purchased by public subscription and placed in the care of the Carlyle's House Memorial Trust in 1895. They opened the house to the public and maintained it until 1936, when control of the property was assumed by the National Trust, inspired by co-founder Octavia Hill's earlier pledge of support for the house.<ref name=":0">Cumming, Mark, ed. (2004). "Cheyne Row, Chelsea". ''The Carlyle Encyclopedia''. Madison and Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 90–91. {{ISBN|978-1-61147-172-4}}.</ref> It became a Grade II listed building in 1954 and is open to the public as a historic house museum.
== The Carlyles in residence == left|thumb|''A Chelsea Interior'' by Robert Scott Tait, 1857 In the early months of 1834, Carlyle had decided to move from Craigenputtock, the couple's residence in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, to London. He arrived in London in May, seeking his friend Leigh Hunt, whom he had asked to keep an eye out for a likely property. Carlyle, discovering that Hunt had done nothing of the kind, found a promising house himself, very close to the Hunt residence in Chelsea. The Carlyles moved into 5 Cheyne Row on 10 June 1834; the street address was changed to 24 in 1877. The house became central to Victorian intellectual life, a place of pilgrimage for literati, scientists, clergymen and political figures from all over Europe and North America. Carlyle did most of his writing there from ''The French Revolution'' onward.<ref name=":0" />
The building dates from 1708 and is a typical Georgian terraced house, a modestly comfortable home where the Carlyles lived with one servant and Jane's dog, Nero. It is preserved very much as it was when the Carlyles lived there, despite a later occupant with scores of cats and dogs. It is a good example of a middle-class Victorian home. Devotees tracked down many items of furniture owned by the Carlyles. It contains some of the Carlyles' books (many on permanent loan from the London Library, which was established by Carlyle). It also contains pictures, personal possessions, portraits by artists such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Helen Allingham, and memorabilia assembled by their admirers.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}
The house is made up of four floors. The kitchen is in the basement. The ground floor was the parlour. The first floor holds both the drawing room/library and Jane's bedroom. Thomas's bedroom was on the second floor and is now the custodian's residence. While researching in preparation for his ''History of Frederick the Great'', Carlyle found the noise from the street and his neighbours intolerable, so in 1854 he had a "soundproof room" constructed in the top story.<ref>Bossche, Chris R. Vanden (2004). "''Frederick the Great'': Composition and Publication". In Cumming, Mark (ed.). ''The Carlyle Encyclopedia''. Madison and Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 176. {{ISBN|978-1-61147-172-4}}.</ref> The house has a small walled garden which is preserved much as it was when Thomas and Jane lived there; the fig tree still produces fruit.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}
The house may have been the model for the Hilberrys' house in Virginia Woolf's ''Night and Day'' (1919).<ref>{{Cite web |title=relationship |url=http://mural.uv.es/ralolo/virginia.html |access-date=2022-06-15 |website=mural.uv.es}}</ref>
== The Carlyles' house today == The house has been owned and managed by the National Trust since 1934. In 2026, the National Trust changed the name from [Thomas] Carlyle's House to the Carlyles' House, to signal the important role played by Jane Carlyle.
== Stanford and Thea Holme ==
The theatre producer Stanford Holme became curator of the house and moved there with his wife, the actress Thea Holme, in 1959.<ref name="Times-60797">{{cite news |url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=TTDA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=285&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C10%29Thea+Holme%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28MB%2CNone%2C8%29%22TTDA-1%22%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=bclib&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=CS254379913&contentSet=UDVIN&callistoContentSet=UDVIN&docPage=article&hilite=y |title=Thea Holme |date=9 December 1980 |work=The Times |page=15 |accessdate=29 August 2014}} {{Subscription required}}</ref> She took up writing, beginning with a book about the lives of Thomas and Jane Carlyle at the house, ''The Carlyles at Home'' (1965).<ref name="Times-60797" />
==See also== * Writer's home
== Bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |last=Adcock |first=A. St. John |title=Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London |publisher=J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. |year=1912 |location=London |chapter=Chelsea Memories |author-link=Arthur St John Adcock |chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44269/44269-h/44269-h.htm#Page_255}} * {{Cite book |last=Blunt |first=Reginald |url=https://archive.org/details/carlyleschelseah00blunuoft/mode/2up |title=The Carlyles' Chelsea Home, being some account of No. 5, Cheyne Row |publisher=George Bell and Sons |year=1895 |location=York Street, Covent Garden, London}} * {{Cite journal |last=Campbell |first=Ian |date=1991 |title=Carlyle House |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44945539 |journal=Carlyle Annual |issue=12 |pages=65–90 |jstor=44945539 |url-access=registration }} * {{Cite book |title=Carlyle's House |publisher=The National Trust |year=1992 |location=London}} * {{Cite book |last1=Hardwick |first1=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/literaryjourneyv0000hard/mode/2up |title=A Literary Journey: Visits to the Homes of Great Writers |last2=Hardwick |first2=Mollie |publisher=A. S. Barnes and Company |year=1970 |location=South Brunswick, New York |pages=6–10 |chapter=Carlyle's House, Chelsea |isbn=978-0-498-07603-9 |author-link=Michael Hardwick |author-link2=Mollie Hardwick |url-access=registration}} * {{Cite book |last=Harland |first=Marion |title=Where Ghosts Walk: The Haunts of Familiar Characters in History and Literature |publisher=G. P. Putnam |year=1898 |location=New York |pages=63–81 |chapter=No. 24 Cheyne Row |author-link=Marion Harland |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/whereghostswalkh00harl/page/62/mode/2up}} * {{Cite book |last=Holme |first=Thea |url=https://archive.org/details/carlylesathome0000unse |title=The Carlyles at Home |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1965 |location=London |url-access=registration}} * {{Cite book |last=Hubbard |first=Elbert |title=Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great |publisher=The Roycrofters |year=1916 |location=New York |chapter=Thomas Carlyle |author-link=Elbert Hubbard |chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12933/12933-h/12933-h.htm#THOMAS_CARLYLE}} * {{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/illustratedmemor00carlrich/mode/2up |title=Illustrated Memorial Volume of the Carlyle's House Purchase Fund Committee: with Catalogue of Carlyle's Books, Manuscripts, Pictures and Furniture Exhibited Therein |publisher=The Carlyle's House Memorial Trust |year=1896 |location=London}} * {{Cite book |last=Shelley |first=Henry C. |url= |title=The Homes and Haunts of Thomas Carlyle |publisher=Westminster Gazette |year=1895 |location=London |pages=87–140 |chapter=Carlyle in London |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/homeshauntsoftho00londiala/page/86/mode/2up}} * {{Cite book |last=Soseki |first=Natsume |title=The Tower of London |publisher=Peter Owen Publishers |year=2004 |translator-last=Flanagan |translator-first=Damian |chapter=The Carlyle Museum |author-link=Natsume Sōseki}} * {{Cite book |last=Woolf |first=Virginia |title=The London Scene |publisher=Hogarth Press |year=1975 |chapter=Great Men's Houses |orig-date=}} * {{Cite book |last=Woolf |first=Virginia |url=https://archive.org/details/carlyleshouseoth0000wool |title=Carlyle's House and Other Sketches |publisher=Hesperus Press Limited |year=2003 |editor-last=Bradshaw |editor-first=David |location=London |pages=3–4 |chapter=Carlyle's House |isbn=978-1-84391-055-8 |url-access=registration}}
== References ==
{{reflist}}
==External links== * {{Commons category inline}} * {{Official website}}
{{Museums and galleries in London}} {{Thomas Carlyle|state=expanded}}
Category:National Trust properties in London Category:Biographical museums in London Category:Thomas Carlyle Category:Houses completed in 1708 Category:Literary museums in London Category:Historic house museums in London Category:Museums in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Category:Houses in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Category:1708 establishments in England Category:Grade II* listed buildings in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea