Dotted with little glass cases, the room beyond must have been a ballroom or something equally grand once upon a time, when Vaughn House was still inhabited by genuine Vaughns rather than the remnants of their art collection and a scraggle of hardcore art historians and scruffy tourists. You could have fit five of my flat into it and still had room for a good-size coffee shop.

With a fine disregard for atmosphere, the curators had plunked a series of glass and chrome display cases throughout the room, each containing a motley collection of personal effects of long-deceased Vaughns. In the largest case, in the very center of the room, the curators had displayed the pièce de résistance, an impressive collection of Edwardian underwear, from lace-edged drawers large enough to swathe the backside of a baby elephant to a pair of stays that looked like they might have been used to tow the Queen Mary back into port. Next to them, the curators had helpfully positioned a sepia photograph of a formidable dowager with a waist cinched into nothingness and a bosom that could smother a small city.

With four months of fish and chips weighing heavily on my midriff, I cast a speculative eye over the stays. Unfortunately, I didn't think they would fit under my going-out pants, which were designed for something a bit lighter in the way of undergarments. I wondered what the curators of museums would be displaying a hundred years hence. Would we have glass cases filled with fire-engine-red thongs and leopard-print bras, along with a carefully printed white card explaining their sociocultural significance?

The gentleman who occupied the better part of one wall seemed to share my qualms. His gaze was fixed upon the underwear display with a decidedly jaundiced air.