Postdoctoral Researcher
Freddie Fox (1913-1990) inherited his father’s Dublin cigar business, and expanded it to an international concern. In 1992 JJ Fox acquired the older business of Robert Lewis, an eighteenth-century tobacco dealer based in St James’s, London. This museum devoted to smoking history is in the London shop’s basement.
The National Fencing Museum was established in 2002 in by Malcolm Fare, a fencer and fencing historian. It includes displays of fencing equipment, paintings, prints, books, and all kinds of ephemera.
Image via the museum.
Hopewell Colliery Museum is in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. Mining is an ancient tradition in the forest and those born there can exercise their rights to mine coal, iron ore, ochre and stone. The museum includes a working mine, through which visitors can take a guided tour.
Image via the museum.
The Buxton Transport Museum was relatively short-lived, open for only three years. It was established in 1980 by Peter Clark, a vintage car enthusiast. The site is now occupied by Buxton Mineral Water company.
Images and information via Badge Collectors Circle and Derbyshire Through Time by Margaret Buxton on Google Books.
The Douglas Museum was the brainchild of Randolph Osborne Douglas, who created it in his home in Castleton, Derbyshire with his wife Hetty. Douglas was a silversmith, locksmith, and amateur escapologist with the stage name of The Great Randini, inspired by his childhood hero Houdini. His collection included miniature houses, locks, models of the world’s largest diamonds, a variety of Houdini ephemera, and many other curios.
Douglas opened his museum in 1926. After he died in 1956, Hetty continued to run the museum until her death in 1978. The collection was transferred to Buxton Museum and parts of it are now on show in the small museum at Castleton Visitor Centre.
Images by Mark Liebenrood.
Edinburgh Wax Museum opened in 1976 and was soon attracting more than 230,000 visitors a year. Displays included Scottish historical figures, fictional characters, and, as you might expect, a chamber of horrors. The museum was curated by Charles Cameron, a professional magician, who also performed as Count Dracula in night-time shows in the Castle Dracula Theatre on the top floor.
Despite its popularity the owners decided to sell the premises for office development and the museum closed in 1989, joining the ranks of lost wax museums. The premises were up for sale again in 2008, but it seems nothing came of plans to reopen the museum.
Images via Flickr.
The Spalding Bird Museum was owned by the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society and run by Ashley K. Maples and taxidermist Ben Waltham. It contained 840 specimens of British birds and many other specimens, in 160 display cases. Maples died in 1950 and a lack of funds forced the Society to sell the premises in 1953, when a small part of the collection was moved to Ayscoughee Hall and much of it loaned to Leicester Museum. The Hall closed for refurbishment in 2003, when the whole bird collection was transferred to Leicester Museums Service.
Images via South Holland Life (PDF)
The Grange Cavern Military Museum was housed in a limestone cavern near Holywell, Flintshire. The cavern was excavated in the 19th century and taken over by the Ministry of Defence at the beginning of the Second World War. Eleven thousand tons of bombs were stored there including the bouncing bombs of Dambusters fame. The cavern housed over forty military vehicles and a large collection of medals. It closed around 1989.
Images via Historic Military Vehicle Forum and The Home Front Museum.
Haxted is the oldest mill in Surrey. The west half dates from about 1680, being built on the foundations of the original 14th century mill; the east half was built in 1797. The mill ceased working in 1949 but was restored as a museum and opened in 1966. At the time of writing the museum seems to be closed.
Image via Mills Archive. See also Exploring Surrey’s Past.
Little is known about the Tomato Museum, which is said to have closed in 1989. Hudson and Nicholls’ Directory, an invaluable resource for museum researchers, describes it in 1985:
History of tomato-growing on the island, in [a] group of glasshouses built at various dates between the 1890s and 1970s. Crops illustrating the history of the glasshouse industry in Guernsey. Tomato-growing equipment, including an early soil-steamer.
Guernsey tomatoes were an important part of the island’s economy, and in 2003 the Guernsey Museum staged an exhibition about the industry, which might give us a flavour of what the now-lost tomato museum was like.
Image via The Dabbler.