Leighton House

Listen for a moment. Inside the main hall, under a golden dome, water trickles into a small black pool set into the floor. The sound is soft and steady. Around you, thousands of glazed tiles shine in deep blues and greens. Outside, a London bus might be rumbling past on a grey afternoon. In here, the light falls from above, warm and gold, and the city seems very far away.

This is Leighton House, the home and studio of Frederic Leighton, one of the most celebrated painters of Victorian Britain. He was born in Scarborough in 1830 and trained across Europe as a young man. He studied in Germany, in Italy and in France. By the time he settled in London, he had absorbed the art of a whole continent. This house shows that education, room by room.

Before you go deeper, think back to the outside of the building. From Holland Park Road, the house looks fairly modest. It is red brick, neat and orderly, with no grand front to impress the street. That calm face is part of the surprise. Leighton kept the drama for the people he invited inside. The contrast between the plain exterior and the jewel-box interior is one of the first things visitors notice.

The house was designed by Leighton's friend, the architect George Aitchison. Building began in the mid-1860s. Leighton did not stop there. For roughly three decades, he kept adding rooms, extending the studio and refining the decoration. So the building you walk through grew slowly, in layers, like a painting worked over many years. It was never really finished in Leighton's mind.

Now look again at the hall around the fountain. This is the Arab Hall, added in the late 1870s, and it is the heart of the house. Its design draws on La Zisa, a medieval palace in Palermo, Sicily, built when Arab and Norman cultures met on that island. Leighton had travelled in the Middle East and North Africa. He brought back a collection of historic tiles, many from Damascus in Syria, and the hall was built to display them.

Look closely at the tiles and you will see they do not all match. Some carry flowing floral patterns. Others carry lines of Arabic calligraphy, the decorative art of beautiful writing. They came from different buildings and different periods, and they were set together here like pieces of a collage. Where gaps needed filling, the English potter William De Morgan made new tiles to sit alongside the old ones. Try to spot where the old ends and the new begins. It is harder than you might think.

Above the tiles runs a mosaic frieze, a decorative band, designed by the artist Walter Crane. Higher still, look for the wooden lattice screens on the upper level. This type of carved screen is known in the Arab world as a mashrabiya. It lets air and light pass through while hiding the person behind it. Here, it creates a small hidden gallery that looks down into the hall. Visitors often walk straight past without looking up.

As you move into the entrance spaces, notice the deep peacock blue of the tiles around you. These are also the work of William De Morgan. In the Narcissus Hall, a bronze figure of Narcissus stands as a focal point. In Greek myth, Narcissus was a young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Placing him here, close to a hall of flowing water, feels like a quiet joke on Leighton's part.

Now climb the stairs towards the studio. This was the working centre of Leighton's life. It is a large, high room with a great window facing north. Painters have long preferred north light because it stays even and cool through the day, without harsh direct sun. Here Leighton painted the classical figures and draped women that made his name. He also hosted musical evenings in this room, with London society gathered among the canvases.

Here is something many visitors miss. For all its splendour, this house had only one bedroom. Leighton never married, and he lived here alone. There was no guest room. Friends could come for dinner, for music, for talk about art — but they did not stay the night. The whole building was arranged around work and around welcoming people, not around a family. The bedroom itself is surprisingly simple compared with the rooms downstairs.

Leighton's career reached its very peak at the end of his life. He served as President of the Royal Academy, the leading institution for art in Britain. In January 1896, he became the first painter to be made a peer, a member of the House of Lords. The next day, he died. His title lasted only a single day, which makes it one of the shortest peerages in British history.

Leighton was not alone on this street. Holland Park Road became home to a circle of artists in the later nineteenth century. Several built studio houses nearby, and they visited one another, shared ideas and competed for attention. After Leighton's death, his house became a museum, and it is now cared for by the local borough. A major restoration was completed in the early 2020s. It brought back original colours and added a new wing with modern spaces for visitors and for drawing.

Before you leave, return for a last look at the Arab Hall. Stand near the pool and let your eyes rise slowly, from the tiles, to the frieze, to the gold of the dome. Listen again to the water. Then step outside into the quiet street, and look back at that plain red brick. It is hard to believe what it holds. As you walk on through Kensington, you might find yourself glancing at other ordinary doors, and wondering what lies behind them.