Review: Revisiting childhood at Sidmouth Toy & Model Museum

Two journeys, in fact – a trip back to your own childhood, and a walk through the history of children’s toys from the 1930s and 40s to the present day.

I’d written about the museum for the Herald several times but had never actually been inside until last week, when I was treated to a guided tour by its founder, Ian Gregory.

The first thing that strikes you as you go inside is the sheer number of exhibits. It’s impossible to take everything in, as your eyes keep being drawn to something else.

There are glass cabinets packed with displays of small toys, models and figurines; miniature trains travelling around large railway layouts, model village-style replicas of buildings and their surroundings; pedal cars, dolls from all eras, vintage to modern; teddy bears, puppets, board games, Ladybird books, automated animals … it’s literally like being a child in a toyshop.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to home in on your own childhood and look for the familiar playthings of your past. I was delighted to come across the Haunted House board game - a three-dimensional set-up, made of cardboard, with simple moving parts, which seemed wildly advanced and exciting to me as a child.

It was amazing to see it again, and to recognise that my childhood fascination with ghosts later played out in my adult life when I joined paranormal investigations at (perhaps?) haunted buildings.

Another evocative sight was the display of James Bond cars and figurines. My brother had the model Aston Martin DB5 based on the gadget-rich car in the film Goldfinger, so that was a familiar sight – but I had no idea that there had been so many other model cars and figurines of Bond, his women, and the key baddies from each film.

The museum also has similar displays around Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Sylvanian Families – think of any children’s toy craze in your lifetime, any vehicle made famous by film or TV, and it’s probably here.

Having successfully visited my own childhood, it seemed natural to go further back, seeing for the first time the kind of toys my parents and grandparents would have played with.

For girls, cut-out paper figures with a choice of paper dresses; rather un-nerving dolls with porcelain heads; child-size versions of kitchen implements. For boys – model boats to sail on boating lakes, pedal cars, replica aeroplanes that they built themselves, printing kits, and – of course – the amazingly detailed model railways.

The museum’s core group of exhibits belongs to its founder Ian Gregory, who had been collecting toys and memorabilia for many years and had dreamed of opening a museum.

He’d kept his own set of Corgi and Dinky cars from the 1960s, along with model trains and aircraft, and built up a large collection of other items. He'd even rediscovered his own long-lost 1959 Triang pedal car decades later. It’s on display with the other mechanical vehicles - and he took it to the Sidmouth Classic Car Show on September 23.

After the museum opened in 2020 (for a limited period, due to Covid restrictions), many local residents offered collections of their own toys and models, happy to see them on display and being enjoyed by other people.

A couple of stand-out exhibits are a beautiful wooden model sailing ship and a large model aeroplane, both of which had been kept as family heirlooms by their owners. In a way the museum is the story of the past lives of Sidmouth’s residents – and, when you visit, you'll almost certainly find a chapter of your own life, too.

Unlike most other visitor attractions, the Toy and Model Museum doesn’t lend itself to the kind of review that dictates ‘this is the best part’ or ‘don’t miss this exhibit’. You’ll be guided by your own memories of the toys you loved in childhood, which may have helped shape your present life.

There’s probably too much at Sidmouth Toy and Model Museum to take in on one visit.  But, unlike the  years of your life that its exhibits evoke – you can always go back again.

Sidmouth Toy and Model Museum is at The Old Chapel in Chapel Street. It's currently closed until October 16, when it will reopen until October 28; it will then be open from December 16-23, including the late-night shopping evening.