Home of unlikely bedfellows: £1m bequest for museum to Handel and Jimi Hendrix

A harpsichord tuner’s £1 million gift will allow George Frideric Handel’s townhouse to be made into a “major British attraction”, with money left over to renovate Jimi Hendrix’s old flat.

The 18th-century composer of the Messiah lived for much of his life in a house in Mayfair, where 200 years after his death, US star Hendrix found lodgings in an upstairs flat, making the address a potential site of musical pilgrimage.

A small museum was founded at the property, but the attraction and its double musical significance remained little-known, and the site has struggled to expand into a fitting place of homage for fans of both rock and classical music.

However, a harpsichord expert who tuned and cared for antique instruments at the house left a surprise £1 million bequest in his will to help expand the site into an attraction to rival places of pilgrimage for devotees of The Beatles.

Mark Ransom died in 2019 aged 85, and the Handel and Hendrix museum found that he had left the site the money to reach the £3 million needed to complete the “Hallelujah Project”, a plan for an expansion that had been on hold until sufficient funding could be found.

The museum’s deputy director and Curator Claire Davies said: “Mark combined extraordinary knowledge and technical ability with warmth and generosity towards those who shared his passion for the harpsichord.

“It seems fitting that it is Mark's generosity that is allowing us to fully open Handel's house to inspire the next generation of musicians.”

Mr Ransom’s passion for baroque music and harpsichords led to work at venues including Glyndebourne, and it was said that for 40 years prior to his death whenever a  harpsichord was needed for a concert or recording in Britain it would likely have been provided or cared for by him.

One of his clients was the four-storey townhouse at 25 Brook Street was home to Georg Friedrich Handel for 36 years, when the German-born composer made his career in London.

The Hallelujah Project will totally refurbish the house to make it look as it would in Handel's lifetime, with new displays, plans for classical concerts inside the building, and private events with food prepared in what used to be the composer’s private kitchens.

Hendrix moved into an upstairs flat at the site in 1968 along with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, and held court in his bedroom there, hosting visits including Eric Clapton, John Lennon, and Mick Jagger.

This flat, and the rest of the site, will be soundproofed as part of plans to make it a go-to venue live music, and the original staircase which Hendrix used to reach his top-floor flat - and which many celebrity guests allegedly passed out on - will be opened up, allowing modern visitors to follow in the exact footsteps of Sixties rock stars.

Given the flat’s significance to 18th-century and 1960s musical culture in the UK, museum director Simon Daniels hopes to raise its profile and put the attraction on par with other sites of pilgrimage for British music.

He said: “We know that people will come to the UK and maybe do The Beatles tour, or pop to Abbey Road, maybe go down Carnaby Street.

“What we have here is a place that was central to that wave of creative in London and in British music in the Sixties, and that deserves to be a major musical attraction, and a place of pilgrimage for people wanting to

“And on top of that, it was the home of one of Britain’s greatest composers, and again, someone who was at the centre of creativity in London.  So we feel this should be a must-visit.  This project will help us do that.”

The refurbished house is due to reopen in 2023.