Stiffleaf's photos with the keyword: deadhouse

the venue here underneath the courtyard of somerset house is far more interesting than the current arty exhibition called the museum of water, which is frankly rather insipid and sentimental. constructed in the late c18 to william chambers designs, the government offices were built on ground sloping steeply from the strand down to the river, with deep light wells around the internal courtyard connected by storage cellars running beneath it, one of which was known as the dead house, presumably having been used for the storage of bodies found drowned in the thames which ran just outside.

some of the multitudinous coal cellars opening off the late c18 storage cellars under the courtyard here have been used for small tableaux on the theme of water during the current exhibition.