Lucy Worsley’s My London

Home is...

Dr Johnson had a point: ‘To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.’ For me, home must also be low-key and low-maintenance. I don’t want major domestic responsibilities.

Where do you live?

In Southwark. Because of my slight speech impediment, people often think I’ve said ‘Suffolk’ and are surprised when I say I’m going to walk home.

Who are your heroes?

Dorothy L Sayers, Florence Nightingale, Queen Elizabeth I, and my fellow Southwark resident Mary Wollstonecraft.

Last play you saw?

The Enchanted Palace, a performance by the theatre company Wildworks at Kensington Palace while our building work was going on. It was an ‘animated exhibition’ in the State Apartments and was fantastically weird.

Which animal would you like to be?

A cat: elegant, self-assured, eats meat at every meal.

Best place for a first date?

I went to the Proms for my first date with my now husband, Mark. ‘Music leads the way to romance,’ as Louis Armstrong croaks, and going to the Proms often involves sitting on a bench afterwards in dusky, dusty, August-y Kensington Gardens…

Ever had a run-in with a policeman?

I was handcuffed the other day at Wapping Police Station — by the curator of the Thames River Police Museum, I should add. His 19th-century handcuffs were far too big and I easily gave him the slip.

What do you collect?

I don’t collect art or pictures because nothing could ever match the collection we look after at work. I do have a weakness for coats, though, and have two wardrobes’ worth. They’re pretty much all from the high street — LK Bennett (purple) and Hoss Intropia (turquoise). I also, rather extravagantly, had a Harris Tweed coat specially made for me by the bonkers-but-brilliant Selina Blow.

What would you do as Mayor for the day?

Ban cars, so everyone would bike or walk.

Building you’d like to live in?

I would have said Hampton Court Palace, but I’ve actually achieved that ambition. I lived in it for a while when I first started working there. It was magical and romantic but very, very cold.

First thing you do when you arrive home?

Kettle on, cup of tea. I am a tea drain.

Most romantic thing someone’s done for you?

Kind strangers send me weird and wonderful gifts: Martini glasses (I do like cocktails), a vast and detailed portrait of me in oils and, most recently, a set of knitted wrist-warmers featuring the brickwork design at Hampton Court Palace.

Who do you call to have fun?

I never ‘have fun’ in the accepted way because I’m always working, though to me my work is fun.

Building you’d most like to be locked in overnight?

Being quite ghoulish, I’d like to try the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds.

Favourite café?

The café of the British Library. I always run into a friend there and the Peyton & Byrne Earl Grey tea is excellent.