Open House
We are very pleased to be taking part in this year's Open House Festival 2024. Open House is a London-wide festival that opens up and celebrates the city’s architecture, special sites and neighbourhoods, with open days and events taking place across all 33 London boroughs.
We will be open to the public, free of charge, on Saturday 14, Friday 20 and Saturday 21 September 2024 from 11am - 5pm.
The House
Dr Johnson’s House was built at the end of the seventeenth century by a City wool merchant, Richard Gough. The timber-framed, brick townhouse, was part of a development in Gough Square, of which Dr Johnson’s House at number 17 is the only one to survive.
The House has a red brick façade with rubbed brick window surrounds and platbands. You can see the change in brickwork at the top, where a new roof had to be constructed following wartime damage. Between two ground floor windows on the main façade, the house has a very early example of a Royal Society of Arts terracotta plaque (installed in 1898) commemorating Samuel Johnson’s residence here. This is one for the first examples of the ‘blue plaque’ scheme, despite not being blue!
The four-storey building has retained many of its period features, which include historic panelling, a fine open staircase, wooden floorboards, a quirky cellarette cupboard, coal holes and even the original door handles. The eighteenth-century front door still has its original anti-burglary devices intact, including a heavy chain with corkscrew latch and spiked iron bar over the fanlight. Visitors can enter all the rooms in the House and sit down on the chairs and window seats to soak up the atmosphere.
Accessibility
There is regrettably no step-free access to Dr Johnson's House.
There are seven steps to access the entrance (with a handrail).
The building is a four-storey townhouse with a staircase between each floor.
There are handrails on each side of the staircase and visitor seating in every room.
Toilets are located down a steep set of stairs.
Volunteers
We still have a few volunteer spots to fill. As a festival volunteer you will be given priority entry to many buildings across the festival programme. Please email info@drjohnsonshouse.org if you would like to sign up.
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