Suffragette Style (Mary Poppins Version)

In honor of Susan B. Anthony's birthday today, we are looking at the London houses of one of our favorite fictional sister suffragettes- Winifred Banks, mother in Mary Poppins. As a side note, our new puppy is named Winifred after our many favorite Winifred characters now including Winifred Banks, Winfred Sanderson, and Winnie Cooper. She goes by these last names instead of ours and is usually "Winnie" as in the Pooh.

We watched Mary Poppins almost daily at our house growing up. I dressed up and carried an umbrella around constantly. So we couldn't wait to see Mary Poppins Returns this holiday season. I had failed to realize it was not a remake! So I was shocked to immediately note the 1930s style house. Don't worry- I caught onto the plot pretty fast after that. We will first look at the 1910 style house of the original Banks family. This house was all Hollywood as a note. We like the help of Hollywood to let us imagine this time period when my grandfather was born in Hampstead in London in what must have been quite a similar house.

Above is Mary Poppins arriving at the fictitious London Banks house in what we can assume is a "Georgian" style. We would love to live on Cherry Tree Lane.

Inside the house, we get the more time period Edwardian vibe. The velvet curtains swagged that way and in those colors, fussy sconces, curly chair legs by the stairs, and that wallpaper. This floor tiling certainly stands the test of time as does the little landscape painting behind Mr. Banks' head. You can always find a place for a little gilt framed landscape (even under a sconce as shown here) and perhaps that is why those pieces are always flying off the shelves of our antique shop.

Let's tidy up the nursery, shall we? There is an amazing built-in looking wardrobe to the right of the window that we want to point out first. Dressers are painted white to match. You think that all the Victorian or Edwardian furniture is dark wood with no paint but for a nursery, maybe they would go light and fresh like we like to today. We also see matching fabrics on the mantle, windows, and more in a gold color with a trim. But most importantly, a pair of Staffordshire dogs on the mantle and possibly cats too!

In another famous scene, a fabulous gold gilt mirror and sweet wallpaper.

Lastly, our sister suffragette trying to save some of her home decor from the cannon blast next door on the hour. All the height of fashion during the era of the beginning of rights for women and all collectible today!