The Museum of Childhood
There are 4, 000 toys in London"s Museum of Childhood, but it is not essential to be a child to enjoy it. Most of the older toys were me
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to be played with by adults.
All the toys live in a beautiful glass-topped bu
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in the East End of London-but it wasn"t built for them. It was opened in 1872 and displayed art, shoe-making and furniture col
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It wasn"t until 1974 that the wh
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building was officially devoted to the history of childhood.
Once upon a time, every toy was home-made, although by the late 1700s a huge toy industry had dev
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Many home-made toys were made of metal and wood and a few of these have lasted well enough for the museum to display them. It even has one of the oldest dolls"houses still in exi
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, made in 1673. There"s something for everyone, including the 18
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century toy theatre and the miniature Chinese gardens, containing tiny ani
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. Whiehever is your favorite, each exhibit enables you to catch a gli
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of the people and world it was made for.
The 35 or so workers at the museum take great care to make sure that all of the exhibits are preserved in good working order. And as f
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the 500 new toys that move in every year from all over the world-nobody has ever heard a sin
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one complaining.