museum
John Savery, 1721
12 Crooms Hill, SE10 8ER
Carefully restored Grade II* listed Georgian town houses, retaining many principal architectural features, including elegant façades and panelled rooms. Now houses the UK's only museum devoted to the history of fans and craft of fan making.
Cutty Sark, Greenwich
Greenwich, Maze Hill
177, 180, 188, 286, 386, 199
Cutty Sark DLR is currently closed making Greenwich Train and DLR station the most central and closest station to come to the Museum through
We also have a ramp that can be put down for ease of access for wheelchair users getting into the Museum.
The Museum is a small and calm space, without loud noise or bright lights, with one video that's optional to watch with an audio guide.
11:00–17:00
As part of the Open House Festival, The Fan Museum will be open for free entry to all visiting guests on Saturday 13th September 2025.
11:00–13:00
Come and see as our Fan Making Workshop Facilitator Dawn Wylds showcases and demonstrates Fan Making Techniques.
Talk
11:00–12:00
This talk will cover the history of The Fan Museum and give information on the temporary exhibition 'Birds of a Feather'.
How to book
Please create a free visitor account to book your festival tickets.
Talk
14:00–15:00
This talk will cover the history of The Fan Museum and give information on the temporary exhibition 'Birds of a Feather'.
How to book
Please create a free visitor account to book your festival tickets.
Talk
16:00–17:00
This talk will cover the history of The Fan Museum and give information on the temporary exhibition 'Birds of a Feather'.
How to book
Please create a free visitor account to book your festival tickets.
The Fan Museum is the first and only museum devoted entirely to fans of every kind, from all over the world. Situated in the heart of historic Greenwich, it is located in two of a small terrace of town houses dating from 1721, designed by the architect and planner, John Savery. The buildings are Grade II listed.
From private residences, the houses were split up into flats, then acquired by the local authority for use as a nurses’ home and finally abandoned and allowed to fall into a state of advanced decay. They were purchased at auction by a charitable trust, which gifted them to The Fan Museum Trust in 1987. The mammoth task of converting the houses to museum and residential use then started under the direction of the architect John Griffiths, and with the guidance of the late Leslie Ginsburg (a leading light in the Georgian Society).
Despite their use as a working museum and the addition of the top storeys of residential accommodation, the buildings have been meticulously restored and converted, retaining and restoring all the principal original architectural features, including the elegant facades, the staircase with ‘barley sugar’ baluster, the panelled rooms, the thin glazing bars and shutters on the windows, and the front courtyard with its wrought iron railing and gates. The domestic scale and character has been carefully preserved, although all the fireplaces have been replaced. Colours for the interiors have been carefully chosen to reproduce accurately the effect of the period.
The buildings are further enhanced at the rear by the addition of a gracious Orangery in the style of the period, painted in trompe l’oeil by the designer, Jane Barraclough.
Care and conservation of the collections is paramount; all windows are furnished with UV filter film (renewed every two years) and fibreoptic lighting is used in the cases. Heat and humidity levels are monitored and kept as constant as possible.
