Soho House Museum - Handsworth

Soho House was once a regular meeting place for some of the greatest minds of the 18th century.

It was in the dining room of this elegant house that Matthew Boulton, one of the country's first industrialists, entertained the leading scientists and inventors of the industrial age.

Boulton’s guests included James Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood and Joseph Priestly.

They were collectively known as the Lunar Society and Soho was one of the venues where they discussed ideas and presented discoveries that continue to affect our lives today.

Matthew Boulton lived in the house for 43 years until he died in 1809. During that time the area surrounding the house was developed into a 200-acre estate and the country’s first major factory was created.

Boulton’s Soho Manufactory made gilded ormolu decorative objects like clocks and candelabra as well as silverware and the cheaper Sheffield plate wares, which offered an affordable alternative to silver for the growing middle-class.

What will I see?

Highlights at Soho House include:

• The dining room where members of the Lunar Society met to discuss their world-changing ideas
• The surviving sections of the first known under-floor central heating system since Roman times
• The ormolu Sidereal clock, which tells ‘star time’ – made by Boulton & Fothergill but rejected by Russian Empress Catherine the Great because it didn’t play a tune
• The picturesque 18th century garden, designed using Matthew Boulton’s original planting lists