Quirky Craven Arms pop culture museum open again

The museum, painstakingly built up over the years as a labour of love by Stella Mitchell and her husband David, is tucked away in a side street in Craven Arms and is rightly regarded as one of the county's hidden treasures.

Dubbed the National Museum of British Popular Culture, it is piled high with exhibits taking in all aspects of everyday life. And it opened its doors again at the weekend after shutting down over December and January.

A big section of toys features old Subbuteo and Meccano sets sitting alongside the more modern WWF wrestling and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures.

One of the most popular exhibits in this section, particularly for older men, Stella said, is a Johnny Seven toy gun which was the best selling boy's toy back in 1964.

"It actually fired out plastic bullets," she said. "I think it was banned after a while.

"It's strange, but statistically you get far more women in museums than men. Then they come here and see things like that, and you can see the amazement in their eyes. It's great to see."

There are also sections on confectionery – featuring everything from Bertie Bassett to Black Magic – as well as pop music, television and radio.

Interspersed with that are set ups of typical front rooms in various periods of history, one of which features one of the more unusual items donated to Stella over the years.

"We have a stuffed Jack Russell sitting on the chair in our mid 20th Century front room," Stella said. "It came through the post unannounced in a big box. It is bizarre the kind of things we receive."

Donations form a large part of the myriad weird and wonderful things on display, but Stella is also constantly out and about on the lookout for perfect new additions.

"I don't own a mobile phone and I have never used a computer, so I don't bother with eBay or anything like that," she said.

"I prefer to get out and about. I need to smell the things I am buying, to touch them. We go to car boot sales, antique and collectors fairs. Abergavenny Flea Market is fantastic – the sole reason the museum is shut on Wednesdays every week is purely so we can make the visit there."

To capture a snapshot of everyday life in Britain was the vision of 62-year-old Stella, who said it was the "result of a lifetime's work".

She began collecting memorabilia as an arts student in Birmingham back in the early 1970s and dreamed of finding somewhere to put it all on display.

Stella said: "I realised when a student that other museums were ignoring the lives, experiences and possessions, and the hopes and dreams, of the 'ordinary' people of Britain.

"I was always fired with the desire to right this wrong, as well as being fuelled with the artistic need to create something of merit that might knock just a few peoples's socks off!

"When me and my husband Dave joined forces in 1985 the way forward became clear. Our first museum was open to the public from 1991 – we have run it on a web of shoestrings ever since. Ninety-nine per cent of it has been chosen by me over about 45 years and paid for on a bank overdraft that ebbs like the sea," she said.

"The collection increases daily, and the displays are reconfigured and annually."

The museum, in Market Street, is always shut in December and January but this period is far from a break for Stella and David.

Stella said: "I think a lot of people think we swan off on holiday when the museum shuts, but it couldn't be further from the truth. We've been spending most of the time refurbishing. We have a new display called 'technology' for 2014 which people will not have seen before."

She said computers and consoles, including the 1970s' Commodore PET and 1980s' Dragon 32 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum were on display, along with early mobile phones.

"We have almost everything from the early days of home computing," she said.

"I'm not that into computers myself, but I do collect them – I'm an avid collector of everything. We've only just found a place to put them. We also have an amazing early washing machine, and an early Dyson.

"But people don't realise we come right up to date – it's not just about the past, it's social history and it keeps going."

Located in the Craven Arms Old Victorian Market Hall, Market Street, the Land of Lost Content is open every day except Wednesdays, from 11am to 5pm. Last admission is 4.15pm.