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Mr Potter's Museum of Curiosities is now closed.

The Collection at Mr Potter's Museum of Curiosities was sold by auction at the Jamaica Inn on September 23rd and 24th 2003 raising over £500,000. The highest price of the sale, £23,500, was paid for ‘The Death and Burial of Cock Robin’, Walter Potter’s earliest and most well known tableau.

A curious collection

Kittens enjoying a cup of tea, guinea pigs playing cricket and rabbits learning to read and write are just a few of the amazing exhibits in Mr. Potter's Museum of Curiosity.

This unique Victorian Museum, was originally opened in 1861, by its founder Walter Potter, in the village of Bramber in West Sussex.

Born in 1835, Walter Potter first began to show an interest in taxidermy as a teenager. He began with his own pet canary when it died which is today still displayed in the Museum, and progressed from there.

Taxidermy was originally the means by which collectors and explorers could preserve the birds, insects and animals they had discovered from all over the world.

Taxidermy in the Victorian era began to be a popular method by which people could keep much loved pets after their death. Most Victorian homes would hold their share of stuffed animals.

Having been bought by the owners of Jamaica Inn in the1980's, the collection has grown considerably, and even today people donate and loan artefacts.

The collection now includes, besides Potter’s amusing tableaux, smoking memorabilia, Victorian toys and dolls' houses, weaponry and curious oddities from around the world, including a gruesome collection of freaks of nature.

Now the collection has been sold, Jamaica Inn is expanding its accommodation.

 

 

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