- This event has passed.
Join us for a summer coffee morning in Sigmund Freud’s garden!
We continue our popular Kaffee & Kuchen sessions with the story of the Freud family at 20 Maresfield Gardens. While you sip your morning coffee, Freud Museum expert Daniel Bento will share unique insights into the gardens as they were in Freud’s time, and Museum Director, Dr Giuseppe Albano, will tell you about how Freud acquired his vast collection of over 2,500 antiquities. Freud was an impassioned and knowledgeable collector, amassing many Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Chinese objects which he arranged on his desk and on nearly every surface in his study, as well as in glass cabinets. The oldest dates to 2,000BC; the newest, a 20th-century metal porcupine.
Exclusive Arts & Crafts Garden Visit
Following the coffee morning, you are invited to an exclusive viewing of the award-winning private gardens of Stephen and Linda Williams at Little House A, 16A Maresfield Gardens.
Created in 2002, the front and back gardens of this historic Arts & Crafts property are considered a superb modern interpretation of the period’s design and plantsmanship. The elegant front garden is centred on an octagonal bed set in paving, while the terraced back gardens have a dark yew hedge set with niches for sculptural pots which make a dramatic backdrop to the garden. A stainless-steel water feature feeds a narrow stone rill down one side of the garden; on the other side, is a pergola covered in roses, clematis and wisteria.
The gardens contain rare trees and shrubs, including more than 30 acers as well as specialist ferns and hostas. This is an unmissable opportunity to see what is one of the more interesting private gardens in London rarely opened to the public.
We are most grateful to Stephen and Linda Williams for making their beautiful gardens available to attendees of the Freud Museum coffee morning. Please note that the garden visit is only available 10.30am – 12pm.
Apfelstrudel
Our Apfelstrudel is supplied by the wonderful London-based, traditional Viennese patisserie, Kipferl. Hand-made with ultra-thin pastry and filled apples, raisins and almonds, and warmly spiced with cinnamon, they are a pure Viennese indulgence! Enjoy the traditional way, with coffee, or choose from a selection of teas.
You are welcome to continue to browse the Museum and Gift Shop when we open to the public at 10.30am.
Tickets
£35 / £28 (Member/Patron)
Members: Please enter your promocode to receive a 20% discount. Membership discount can only be applied for the valid membership holder.
Tickets include the Exclusive Visit to the Arts & Crafts Gardens at Little House A, 16A Maresfield Gardens.
You are welcome to continue to browse the Museum and Gift Shop when we open to the public at 10.30am.
‘Our home, it is very beautiful…’
After fleeing Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938, the Freud family set up home in London. In an unexpected blessing, virtually all their possessions were sent after them, including the original couch on which Freud’s patients told him their dreams. Here, Freud recreated his study and consulting room much as it had been in Vienna. Preserved as it was when he died, Freud’s study provides a unique glimpse into the complex intellectual life of fin de siècle Vienna.
On stepping through the front door of 20 Maresfield Gardens, light from the high windows above the stairwell fills the entrance hall, creating a sense of space and freedom. The Freuds had lived 47 years in a dark apartment in Vienna they were delighted by the large gardens surrounding their new home in England. Sigmund Freud’s joy is reflected in his letter to Jeanne Lampl-de Groot on 8 October 1939, ‘Our home, it is very beautiful… Light, comfortable, spacious. We have it incomparably better than at Berggasse and even than Grinzing’, a district of Vienna where the Freud family had owned a summer home. Not only did the new house provide spacious accommodation for the family, it also provided outdoor space for their beloved dogs!
