Dennis Severs, an American from California, who died in 1999 lived at 18 Folgate Street. At local markets he bought period pieces and furniture.
This old house inspired him to write the life story of a family who could have lived here. He invented a Huguenot family, the Jervis family, who fled from France in 1688.
Sounds and scents bring their world to life, floorboards creak, fires crackle, a kettle hisses on the hob, it is all very real. As if you step back in time.
The tour starts in the cellar from where you move on to the kitchen. Then to the eating parlour, where you can hear the ticking of a clock. You then move upstairs to the ‘better’ rooms and now you are in the Georgian era. Then on to the smoking room where the men retired after dinner. The tour ends in the withdrawing room, where men and women partook in social talk.
During the tour you are asked not to speak so that you can absorb the atmosphere more intensely.
