Fenton House: Four Centuries of Collecting

At the top of Hampstead Grove, set back from the street behind a high brick wall and a walled garden of apple trees and roses, Fenton House is the oldest surviving mansion in Hampstead. Built around 1686, it has the compact, assured proportions of late seventeenth-century domestic architecture at its best — a William-and-Mary house that has somehow avoided being swallowed by the neighbourhoods that grew up around it.

The collection of keyboard instruments

The collection of early keyboard instruments — harpsichords, spinets, clavichords and early pianos spanning three centuries — is one of the finest in existence. Many are kept in playing condition, and during the summer the house hosts recitals that fill the panelled rooms with the sound of Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin on instruments the composers might have recognised. Seats are limited and tickets should be booked in advance; the atmosphere is closer to a chamber recital at a friend's house than to a formal concert.

Porcelain and textiles

Alongside the keyboards, Fenton holds an important collection of English, Chinese and Continental porcelain, and a quieter but equally interesting group of needlework and domestic textiles. Each room tells a different collecting story: the first-floor drawing room is arranged around its keyboards, the dining room around its Worcester porcelain, and the upstairs bedrooms around the more intimate Regency objects.

The walled garden

The walled garden with its kitchen garden, orchard and formal parterre is worth the entrance fee on its own. The orchard is a working collection of English apple varieties — many pre-Victorian — and the annual apple weekend in early October is a small local event that still feels genuinely surprising. The parterre below the house is planted for year-round interest; the colour scheme in early summer, when the roses overlap with the lavender hedge, is one of the quiet pleasures of the Hampstead calendar. For a wider green-space context, see our parks guide.

How Fenton survived

The house was given to the National Trust in 1952 by Katherine, Lady Binning, with the condition that the family rooms be preserved in their late-Regency arrangement. The preservation has been careful; the house does not feel museum-like, but rather like a well-loved family home that happens to be open to the public.

A morning's visit

Allow ninety minutes for the house and another thirty for the garden. The upstairs rooms reward slow attention; the first-floor music room is the usual highlight. On recital days, arrive early enough to walk the garden first — the listening experience is better after you have spent time with the apple trees.

Pairing Fenton with the rest of the village

Fenton sits at the top of the village near Admiral's Walk, a short walk from Flask Walk and the start of our architectural street guide. The natural companion visits are Keats House and Burgh House; all three together make a proper morning of Hampstead indoors, bookended by Heath walks as described in our Heath overview.

## The collection in detail The early keyboard collection at Fenton House is one of the most important in Britain — around 25 instruments spanning roughly 1540 to 1805. Virginals, harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos. The 1612 Ruckers virginals is the oldest and one of only a handful of surviving instruments from that maker. Several instruments are kept in playing condition; the National Trust runs an annual programme of small-scale recitals using them. The porcelain collection covers English, Continental, and Chinese pieces, mostly 18th-century. The Meissen and the early English Worcester are the highlights for collectors; for general visitors, the rotating displays of figures and tea services are the more accessible introduction. The paintings are a small but significant collection of British 17th and 18th-century portraits and landscapes, with a Constable oil sketch and several Joshua Reynolds works. ## The walled garden The garden is the second draw and arguably the better one in summer. A walled formal layout from the late 17th century, kept in roughly original form, with espaliered fruit trees against the south wall, a rose collection, and herbaceous borders that peak in June and July. The small orchard at the rear includes 30 varieties of apple, several of them traditional London varieties (Hampstead Pippin, Bedfordshire Foundling) propagated from historic local stock. National Trust gardeners run an apple weekend in October — tastings, identification clinics, sales of seedling trees. ## Practical visiting Fenton House is open March to October, Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm. Closed November to February. Adult tickets around £10, free for National Trust members. Children's audio trail available free at the entrance. ## Combining with other Hampstead visits Fenton House sits on Hampstead Grove, a five-minute walk from Burgh House. The two together — Queen Anne residential plus Hampstead local history — make a good half-day. Add Whitestone Pond and Admiral's Walk for the architectural walk, or Keats House for the literary day.