Carlyle's House

In 1834 Thomas and Jane Carlyle left their remote moorland home in Scotland and came to London to seek their fortune. They rented this house in the then 'unfashionable' Chelsea for just £35 a year. Experience the intimate atmosphere of a Victorian home.

The collection is mainly of Carlyle memorabilia, including photographs, paintings and furniture belonging to Thomas and Jane Carlyle who lived in the house from 1834 until their deaths. There is a substantial remnant of the working library of Thomas Carlyle (795 titles in total).

At the back of Carlyle's House is a little walled garden where Jane grew flowers and herbs and Thomas grew vegetables.

Few textiles remain at Carlyle’s House from Thomas and Jane Carlyle’s time there. A pair of original chintz curtains dating from around the late 1840’s, made by Jane Carlyle herself, went for conservation repair in 2016. Thanks to that painstaking work they are now finally hanging back in Jane’s bedroom.

On 3 May 1841, Thomas Carlyle was finally able to realise his vision for a new lending library for London. What he created that day has gone on to influence and inspire generations of readers and writers - from Charles Dickens, Henry James and Harriet Martineau to Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot, Agatha Christie and Winston Churchill amongst many others. Read more about the library's history on their website.

Thomas Carlyle is one of the most influential figures you may never have heard of. A Victorian author and intellectual he wrote "The history of the world is but the biography of great men". In a new podcast, Ellie Ikiebe, New Museum School trainee at Carlyle's House explores the question using contemporary references.

In 2017 Simon Heffer, Ian Hislop and AN Wilson came to Carlyle's House to discuss the legacy of Thomas and Jane Carlyle, recreating the atmosphere of the famous salons hosted by the Carlyles which once attracted the most influential thinkers of the Victorian period.