I had the utmost pleasure giving a talk in Sir John Soane’s Dining Room/Library, a curious mixture, like so much of the house, of grandeur and intimacy, helped by the room being full, like an early nineteenth-century séance.

Before the talk, I was able to wander round his taut, reflective interiors, so full of objects, but all artfully arranged. Is it picturesque ? Or neoclassical ? A memory palace ? Or just a form of artful pandemonium ?