Leighton House and Sambourne House are two Victorian artists' homes in Kensington, about ten minutes' walk apart, run together by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Leighton House costs £14 for an adult, Sambourne House £12, and a joint ticket for both is £23 (September 2026).
Leighton House was built for Frederic, Lord Leighton, the most successful painter in Britain in the late 19th century, and its centrepiece is the Arab Hall: a domed room lined with antique tiles he collected in Turkey, Egypt and Syria, with a fountain in the middle of the floor. Sambourne House, at 18 Stafford Terrace, is the far more ordinary family home of Edward Linley Sambourne, chief cartoonist at Punch, kept almost exactly as his family left it.
They are two different pleasures. One is a rich man's stage set; the other is a middle-class Victorian household frozen in place. Our round-up of London's best small museums covers where they sit among the alternatives; this page is about how to plan a visit to the two of them and what the joint ticket is really worth.
The two houses compared
- Leighton House
- 12 Holland Park Road, W14 8LZ. Wednesday to Monday, 10am–5.30pm, last entry 4.30pm. Closed Tuesdays
- Sambourne House
- 18 Stafford Terrace, W8 7BH. Wednesday to Sunday, 10am–5.30pm, last entry 4.30pm. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
- Adult tickets
- Leighton £14, Sambourne £12, joint £23
- Concessions
- £10 at either house, £16 joint
- Children 6–18
- £6 at either house, £8 joint. Under-6s free
- National Art Pass
- Leighton £7, Sambourne £6, joint £13
- Nearest stations
- High Street Kensington and Kensington (Olympia)
The Arab Hall, and what it cost Leighton to build
Leighton started the Arab Hall in 1877 and it was not finished until 1881. He worked with the architect George Aitchison, and the two of them drew on buildings they had admired in Palermo, Granada, Istanbul, Cairo and Damascus. The room cost more than £7,000, which is worth holding next to the £4,500 the original house had cost to build. It was an extravagance and Leighton knew it.
The tiles are genuine antiques, most of them bought by Leighton himself on trips to Turkey, Egypt and Syria from 1867 onwards. The two matching grape-motif panels on the west wall were bought in Damascus in 1873 by Caspar Purdon Clarke, who later ran the V&A. Leighton wrote from Damascus that he was spending "a vast deal of time in hunting tiles".
The ceramicist William De Morgan was brought in to repair damaged tiles and make replacements, and he made the deep turquoise tiles that line the Narcissus Hall and staircase next door. The wooden screens are mashrabiyya, and they need constant conservation cleaning because they gather dust. Sensors in the room monitor temperature and humidity.
One detail is easy to miss because it is outside: the dome has a metal spire topped by a crescent, of the kind found on mosques and shrines in Egypt, Syria and Turkey. Go into the garden and look up before you leave.
Leighton painted the Arab Hall only once. It appears as the setting of Sun Gleam, shown at the Royal Academy in 1884. He described the room himself as "a little addition for the sake of something beautiful to look at once in a while", which is a more modest account than the one visitors usually give.
Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
What you can see at Leighton House without a ticket
This is the part most visitors do not know. The new wing at Leighton House is free to walk into, and it holds a surprising amount:
- The Tavolozza Drawings Gallery, a purpose-built space for works on paper, with a rotating programme of free exhibitions drawn from the museum's 700 sheets of Leighton's own drawings. A free display about the history of the Arab Hall ran there from 21 March to 4 October 2026.
- Leighton's two frieze paintings, Music and The Dance, each ten metres wide, in the new reception, along with a bust of Leighton by Thomas Brock.
- A newly cast bronze of Leighton's sculpture Athlete Wrestling with a Python, at the foot of the helical staircase.
- The De Morgan Café, where a collection of William De Morgan ceramics given to the museum in the 1920s is on open display, together with two conserved wall paintings by George Frederic Watts, saved when Little Holland House was demolished in 1875.
- The garden and the shop.
That is a genuinely worthwhile half-hour for nothing, and it is a reasonable fallback if you arrive on a Tuesday and find the historic house shut. There is more of this sort of thing in our guide to London without spending money.
Pay What You Want runs on the first Monday of every month, 10am to 1pm. On those mornings you can go into the historic interiors of Leighton House and pay whatever you like, including nothing at all. Tickets are sold at the door only, so advance booking is not available, bank holidays are excluded and groups cannot use it. Arrive early: three hours a month is not much capacity.
Sambourne House: the one people underestimate
Eighteen Stafford Terrace is a narrow terraced house, not a palace, and that is its point. Linley Sambourne moved in with his wife Marion shortly after their marriage in 1874 and decorated it in the "House Beautiful" manner of the period, with William Morris "Fruit" wallpaper, stained glass and crowded walls of pictures. Very little has been changed since.
Sambourne was Punch's chief cartoonist and an obsessive amateur photographer, who used his own photographs as references for his drawings and owned several cameras including a "detective" model. A sound installation now plays in the historic dining room, which sounds like a gimmick and is not: it fills in the one thing a preserved house always lacks.
At £12 it is the cheaper ticket and, for many visitors, the more memorable hour. If you have time for only one house and you are not specifically after the Arab Hall, this is a defensible choice.
Is the joint ticket worth it?
A joint adult ticket costs £23 against £26 for the two bought separately, so it saves £3. For a child aged 6 to 18 it is £8 against £12, a saving of £4. For a family of two adults and two children in that age range, the joint ticket costs £62 rather than £76.
| Ticket | Leighton House | Sambourne House | Joint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | £14 | £12 | £23 |
| Concession | £10 | £10 | £16 |
| Child 6–18 | £6 | £6 | £8 |
| Under 6 | Free | Free | Free |
| National Art Pass holder | £7 | £6 | £13 |
The saving is small, so the real question is time. Both houses need about an hour, and they are roughly ten minutes apart on foot, so a joint visit is a comfortable half-day rather than a rushed hour. The museums themselves ask you to plan enough time for both. Note that the opening days do not match: Sambourne House is shut on Mondays as well as Tuesdays, so a joint ticket is no use on a Monday.
If you hold a National Art Pass, the joint price falls to £13, which is the best value on the list. Booking ahead is recommended but not required; tickets are sold at the door on the day, and online through the museums’ ticket portal.
The free walking tour of the Holland Park Circle
The museums run free guided walks around the Victorian studio-houses of Holland Park Road and Melbury Road, on selected Thursdays and Sundays from 11am to 12.30pm. They cover the group of artists who built here, among them Val Prinsep, G. F. Watts, Luke Fildes, Marcus Stone and Leighton himself, and why so many of them chose this one corner of Kensington.
The walks start and finish outside Leighton House, take about an hour and a half, and are free, though donations are welcome. Entry to either house is not included. They are led by volunteers, so they can be cancelled at short notice; book a free ticket rather than turning up.
Getting there, and which station to use
High Street Kensington, on the Circle and District lines, serves both houses; Sambourne House is a few minutes away and Leighton House about ten. Kensington (Olympia) is the closer station for Leighton House if you are coming on the Overground or by national rail. Buses 9, 23, 27, 28 and 49 stop near Stafford Terrace.
The two houses sit between Holland Park and Kensington Gardens, which makes for an easy afternoon. Holland Park and the Kyoto Garden are a five-minute walk from Leighton House, and Kensington Palace is at the far side of the gardens. Our Underground guide explains the Circle and District lines if you are working out connections.
Access, and visiting with children
Both are historic houses with stairs, and the museums publish detailed access information rather than a blanket claim. Contact them before you travel if stairs are a problem, because what is possible differs between the two buildings. The free areas of Leighton House, including the Tavolozza gallery and the café, are in the modern wing.
Children under six go free at both houses, and a family trail is available at Leighton House. The museums run family workshops, which are cheap; a recent session was £6 per child with accompanying adults free. Both houses are quiet places with fragile contents, so they suit older children better than toddlers. Parents judging what will hold an older child's attention may want our piece on the museums that work for teenagers.
Concerts in the studio, and other evening events
Leighton's studio, the huge north-lit room where he worked, is used for concerts. The Kensington and Chelsea Music Society season at Leighton House runs across 2026 and 2027, with tickets at £24 and £12 for concessions, and discounted season tickets. Hearing chamber music in that room, with the paintings on the walls, is a very different evening from a concert hall; our guide to classical music in London covers the larger venues.
There are also life drawing sessions in the studio at £30, or £15 concession, and talks tied to the current exhibitions. Check the museums' What's On page before you book a plain daytime ticket, in case something better is running.
What to combine it with
If you like houses kept as their owners arranged them, the obvious companion piece across town is Dennis Severs' House in Spitalfields, which does the same trick for the 18th century and in silence. Nearer at hand, the V&A is twenty minutes away and free, and the Serpentine Galleries sit in Kensington Gardens between the two.
For a wet afternoon in this part of town, the combination of two small houses and a free café works better than most; see our other ideas for a rainy day in London.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Leighton House cost?
An adult ticket is £14, a concession £10, and children aged 6 to 18 pay £6, with under-6s free. National Art Pass holders pay £7. A joint ticket covering Leighton House and Sambourne House costs £23 for an adult. Prices checked September 2026.
When is Leighton House closed?
Leighton House is closed on Tuesdays and open Wednesday to Monday, 10am to 5.30pm, with last entry at 4.30pm. Sambourne House is closed on both Mondays and Tuesdays, so a joint visit is not possible on a Monday.
Can you visit Leighton House for free?
Parts of it, yes. The new wing, the Tavolozza Drawings Gallery, the De Morgan Café, the garden and the shop are free to enter. The historic interiors, including the Arab Hall, need a ticket, except on the Pay What You Want mornings held on the first Monday of each month from 10am to 1pm.
How long do you need for both houses?
Allow about an hour in each, plus ten minutes to walk between them, so roughly half a day with a coffee in the middle. The museums advise planning enough time for both when you buy a joint ticket, because the last entry at each is 4.30pm.
Which Tube station is nearest to Sambourne House?
High Street Kensington, on the Circle and District lines, is the nearest station to 18 Stafford Terrace. Buses 9, 23, 27, 28 and 49 also stop nearby. For Leighton House, Kensington (Olympia) is an alternative if you are arriving by Overground or national rail.
Sources
- Leighton House and Sambourne House - Visit us (checked September 2026)
- Leighton House - Free to visit areas (checked September 2026)
- Leighton House - Q&A: The Arab Hall (checked September 2026)
- Sambourne House - About the museum (checked September 2026)
- Leighton House - Artists Houses free walking tours (checked September 2026)
- Leighton House and Sambourne House ticket portal (checked September 2026)