We went to the redesigned Leighton House, which has been really beautifully and expensively re-presented, with a new staircase, shop and café to the east added intelligently and in character by BDP, not a firm much associated with sympathetic additions. It used to feel very local authority, not much visited and drab, but has now been done up with funding from the National Heritage Lottery Fund (£9.6 million in toto) – a triumph.
This is Lord Leighton by G.F. Watts:-
Emilie Barrington (she was his next-door neighbour), Portrait of a Girl Seated (c.1885):-
An alcove in the upstairs studio:-
The decoration of the Arab Hall:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Back in November 2019 we went to see the Polish jazz pianist and film composer Marcin Masecki play at Leighton House. We had been to an earlier concert of his in a church in Leytonstone and were looking for further opportunities to see him in concert. We’d never heard of Leighton House but, as it was an easy tube journey, we booked. It was a fantastic night with great music and welcoming staff and the setting was a total surprise. So pleased that it has had care and attention lavished on it. Though I have to say that your experience of the municipal must be different from mine!
Dear Joan, Well worth returning to ! Charles