Cecil Sharp House

Cecil Sharp House in London centres on Kennedy Hall, a 400-guest room within a Grade II folk-arts building. Its defining visual feature is the vast Ivon Hitchens mural: a roughly 20-metre work installed after the hall’s wartime reconstruction, replacing the original musicians’ gallery. The result is a concert setting where a double-height dance hall and a working folk archive shape the atmosphere.

A house rebuilt for folk

Built in 1929 to designs by Henry Martineau Fletcher, Cecil Sharp House opened on 7 June 1930 as the headquarters of the English Folk Dance Society. Named for the society’s founder and organising director Cecil Sharp, the purpose-built scheme brought together his book collection, a large hall for social dancing and concerts, and teaching rooms. The Folk Dance Society joined the Folk Song Society in April 1932, forming the English Folk Dance and Song Society, which owns the house today.

Four bombs hit the building in September 1940, destroying its front entrance, stairwell and musicians’ gallery. Classes and dances continued in the basement while funds were raised for reconstruction. John Eastwick-Field restored and extended the house, and Princess Margaret reopened it on 5 June 1951 with a celebratory dance. Hitchens completed the replacement mural in 1954, giving the main hall its signature wall of stylised folk-dance imagery.

How the room works now

Concerts sit within a wider folk-arts house: hires cover music and spoken word, rehearsals, regular dance and music classes, plus private events; party-political and religious hires fall outside the charity’s policy. Folk forms the musical centre, while the programme also reaches jazz, rock, alternative and indie. Kennedy Hall spans 252 square metres, with Trefusis, Storrow and Karpeles rooms providing smaller flexible options. A “chilled” audience policy welcomes movement during performances alongside respect for artists and fellow listeners.