Stop outside Town House in Spitalfields and you will see an interior that befits this early 18th century building and makes passers-by peer through the window curiously. Is it a museum, a time-capsule created for the many visitors to this early Georgian street, a private house, or a shop?

Town House is owned and run by Fiona Atkins, whose parents were antique dealers and who showed at Olympia and other London fairs in the 80's and 90's as part of the family business. For five years until 2002 she had a shop in Columbia Road, but needed more space and so moved to the Spitalfields shop. Dating from 1720, the building took over 2 years to restore. Fortunately, much of the original panelling had survived and Fiona has used it to create a space that retains the sense of an earlier age, but with the informal sense of a comfortable living room rather than a showroom.

The shop divides naturally into four very different spaces: the 1720's panelled room you first enter, the small courtyard behind, the building beyond that, built as a surgery by two doctors in the 1830's and the basement kitchen.