When preparation for the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) + Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Architecture Gallery was underway about 25 years ago, external consultation was carried out with a variety of different audiences to determine which architectural subjects potential visitors wanted to see represented in what was then the UK’s first permanent architecture gallery.

From the mid-nineteenth century, successful artists gravitated to studio houses in prosperous Chelsea and Kensington. The less affluent artists tended to work in left-over industrial spaces in the more insalubrious parts of town. In the 1860s, when Hampstead became part of the suburban railway system and joined up with the city, some less-established artists began to move to Belsize Park, down-hill from Hampstead village, where earlier generations of artists including Constable, had lived and worked.

Through this short article, Atarah Adams, our 2022-2023 MA scholar, shares her experiences from her Master’s in Conservation of the Built Environment at Birmingham City University.