Mystery of Shropshire stuffed bird collection which took flight

A little while ago we published pictures from the long-disappeared Peplow Hall Museum, which comprised stuffed animals and birds, fossils, birds' eggs, moths and butterflies and so on.

Peplow Hall, near Hodnet, was the home of the Stanier family but they sold up in 1921 leaving a question mark over what happened to the collection.

The best clue, pointing to it heading to an undisclosed place in Newcastle-under-Lyme, is a handwritten caption in an old Stanier family photo album. Written by one of the museum photos, it reads: "The museum, Peplow, presented to Newcastle, Staffs, by B.S. 1920."

B.S. was Sir Beville Stanier, owner of Peplow Hall, and a Shropshire MP.

John said: "I was brought up in the Hawkstone Park area and have always had a great interest in Hawkstone Park.

"I probably have the biggest archive of the area and am always finding something new of interest. I was aware of the collection that was at Peplow Hall and that the collection had previously belonged to the Hill family when they were at Hawkstone Hall."

John does not know what became of the museum after the Staniers sold up, but has information about its history.

He said: "The collection was of British birds and eggs, mammals, heads, moths and butterflies, fossils and so on, along with a number of bronze and stone implements found in the ruins of the Red Castle at Weston.

"This collection originally belonged to Lord Hill of Hawkstone and was displayed in what is now The Winter Garden of the hall."

Lord Hill appointed Shrewsbury taxidermist Henry Shaw as curator of the collection, with an annual salary.

"As part of the attractions at Hawkstone Park various organised parties of visitors were shown the collection at the hall that was referred to in various excursion programmes as 'the museum.'

"During the late 1800s, due to bankruptcy of the Hawkstone estate, the collection was sold in 1897."

There followed a major legal dispute which turned on whether the stuffed birds and so on were part of the fixtures of the building, or whether they could be removed. It went to the Court of Appeal in July 1897 which ruled they were not fixtures, and dismissed an appeal by Lord Hill.

"The bird collection was obviously a great interest to a local family, Sir Beville Stanier from nearby Peplow Hall, who obtained the collection for the Shropshire Archaeological Society and installed it at Peplow after he bought it through the bankruptcy sale."

Sir Beville thought it was important that the collection should not be broken up for a lack of a home, and was also to add some objects of his own to it, says John.