Drawing room

Drawing Room

Room objects

Piano

Some children learned to play the piano.
Girls especially, were expected to be able to sing and play beautifully; they often played at gatherings to entertain their family and guests.

Sheet music

Some children learned new songs and tunes by using sheet music.
These were pages with musical notes printed on them.
The pages were ‘read’ by the performers so that they knew which notes to play.

Painting of Changing Homes

One of the paintings in the Victorian drawing room

This is a painting of a wedding party in the drawing room of a grand house.
The bride and groom, their families and friends can all be seen gathered around.
The wedding gifts are displayed on a table and the maids are peeping through the door on the right-hand side.

Davenport Desk

Writing Desk, used for writing letters to friends and lists for the servants

This was a writing desk and was made in about 1860.
It has four real drawers used to store writing paper and pens and four false drawers for decoration.
The sloping top could be used for writing letters to friends and lists for the servants.

Fireplace

This fire grate is made of cast-iron.
It was used to burn coal to heat the room.
Around the fire is a marble surround and ‘mantle piece’, or shelf, on which objects could be displayed.

Gasolier

The gasolier produced yellowish, flickering flames; this one was used to light the room from above.
Some London homes had gas lighting after about 1840.
Gaslights were an improvement on candles but smelled nasty and made a black dust called soot.