Patrick Comerford
Who are the inseparable pairs in your mind? Morecambe and Wise? Laurel and Hardy? The Two Ronnies? French and Saunders? Simon and Garfunkel? Lennon and McCartney? Flanders and Swann?
Without prompting, would you have suggested Handel and Hendrix?
Handel Hendrix House (previously Handel & Hendrix in London and the Handel House Museum) is a London museum dedicated to the lives and works of the German-born baroque composer George Frideric Handel and the American rock singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix. They lived lived next door to each other at 25 and 23 Brook Street, Mayfair, separated only by walls and a mere 2½ centuries or so.
I was writing the week before last about blue plaques (5 September 2026), and this unlikely pairing of composers are commemorated with blue plaques on the façades of the neighbouring houses that now form Handel Hendrix House, previously known as Handel & Hendrix in London and the Handel House Museum.
Handel made his home in London in 1712 and eventually became a British citizen in 1727. He lived at 25 Brook Street from 1723 until he died there in 1759. Almost all his works after 1723, including many of his operas, oratorios and ceremonial music, were composed and partially rehearsed in the house, where he had a variety of keyboard instruments, including harpsichords, a clavichord and a small chamber organ.
Handel moved into 25 Brook Street in 1723, shortly after he had been appointed by George II as composer to the Chapel Royal. The house had been newly built with Nos 23, 27/29 and 31 by George Barnes as part of the planned extension of Brook Street, linking Hanover Square with Grosvenor Square, between 1717 and 1726.
Handel’s immediate neighbours on either side were from the upper middle classes and initially included the MP John Monckton, who later became the first Viscount Galway in 1727.
From the 1730s on, there are references to rehearsals of operas and oratorios at Brook Street by Handel’s friends and fellow musicians. Handel used the house for entertainment, composition and rehearsal, and for business.
After Handel died in 1759, his musical instruments passed to John Christopher Smith and his son of the same name, while the tenancy of the house and Handel’s clothing passed to his servant John Du Burk. The house remained largely unchanged until 1905, when CJ Charles converted the house into a shop, removing the original façade and the internal dividing walls. It was bought by the Co-operative Insurance Society in 1971.
Although the house is a Grade I listed building, its survival was threatened when planning permission was sought in 1982 to demolish five Grade II listed buildings, including Handel’s house.
The Handel Museum Trust Fund was formed in the early 1990s with the object of creating a Handel museum at 25 Brook Street, and after a long period of negotiations and extensive renovation work, 25 Brook Street opened as the Handel House Museum 25 years ago on 8 November 2001.
The house has been restored to look as it did when Handel lived there for 36 years from 1723 to 1759. It is a typical early 18th-century London terrace house, with a basement, three main storeys and an attic, and Handel was the first resident. The interiors have been restored to the somewhat spartan style of the Georgian era, using mostly architectural elements from elsewhere, since, apart from the staircase, few of the original interior features survived.
The museum has restored period rooms on the first and second floors of 25 Brook Street and exhibition rooms in No 23, the adjacent house on the terrace. In 2016, the museum expanded to incorporate the upper floors of 23 Brook Street, home of Jimi Hendrix in the late 1960s.
The Handel House Collection Trust has a collection of Handel memorabilia, including the Byrne Collection of several hundred items that were acquired in 1998.
The museum incorporates the upper floors of its neighbour at 23 Brook Street, the home of the American rock singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) in 1968-1969. These rooms were used for temporary exhibitions and events, but after fundraising, these and the rest of the rooms from the Hendrix apartment were opened to the public in February 2016 as ‘Handel and Hendrix in London’. One exhibit is a collection of Hendrix’s old records.
Both houses have blue plaques for their respective occupants. The blue plaque to George Frideric Handel at 25 Brook Street reads: ‘George Frideric Handel 1685-1759 Composer lived in this house from 1723 and died here’. The blue plaque to Jimi Hendrix at 23 Brook Street reads: ‘Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970 Guitarist and Songwriter lived here 1968-1969’.
The house is open to the public five days a week, Wednesday to Sunday. The museum has a lively events programme including live music, changing exhibitions, lectures and children’s educational events. Several performances of Baroque music are staged each month.
Romeo and Juliet? Burton and Taylor? Plato and Socrates? Mutt and Jeff? Tom and Jerry? Holmes and Watson? Watson and Crick? Mapp and Lucia?
But Handel and Hendrix? Well, that was a first for me in Mayfair this summer.
