It's
Refugee Week this week, and as well as remembering the countless souls who have sought refuge in our city over the generations, it also offers a rare opportunity to visit 19 Princelet Street, London's museum of Immigration and Diversity. This inspiring building was built in 1719 by Samuel Worrall in what were then open fields on the edge of the City of London, and was once home to the Ogier family of Huguenot weavers who had fled France due to religious persecution. Its story involves a number of other groups of refugees, offering a fascinating insight into how immigrants have shaped East London.
The fabric of the building is very delicate and hence it is is open only rarely so today's opening from noon until 4pm and next Sunday's and next Sunday, 22nd June. Your author will be volunteering today and anticipates the usual queue of interested souls waiting to get inside.
For more, see
http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/openings.html
Posts
You could not have selected a better building to visit. One of the handsome Georgian houses in Spitalfields that were built by the Huguenots eventually became the Princelet St Synagogue. The front of the building is your former Huguenot house built in 1722, but at the rear was a synagogue, built 150 years later.
ReplyDeleteI have spent time there :)
Thanks for the link
Hels
http://melbourneblogger.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/59-brick-lane-spitalfields-christian.html