The Layton Collection

THE THOMAS LAYTON TRUST & LAYTON'S COLLECTION

The English House-Wife

This handbook for housewives provides a fascinating insight into the domestic world of women, containing ‘all the virtuous knowledges and actions…which ought to be in any complete housewife’. From butter churning to birthing-pain ‘cures’, sausage pudding recipes to syphilis treatments, Markham advises on every conceivable challenge in the 17th century home.

Gervase Markham, 1683. Layton Collection 10438

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The Collection

Thomas Layton collected books, coins, and archaeological items (usually described as ‘antiquities’) for 70 years. In that time he had accumulated what has been described as “probably the largest collection of London antiquities ever amassed by a single individual”.

The vast majority of items are believed to have been bought at auctions. Some came to him from his men working on the river. His businesses provided opportunities for finds from dredging, building of bridges and embankments along the banks of the Thames, for which Layton paid good money. Even by the standards of the day Layton kept poor records of where items were found. Despite this, the collection is considered highly important particularly to archaeologists and pre-historians.