Land of Lost Content (museum)

The museum was founded by Stella Mitchell, who had begun collecting everyday objects while studying art in Birmingham in the 1970s.^[3][4] She opened her first museum in 1991 with her husband Dave in West Sussex, before moving to Craven Arms in 2003.^[3] Its final premises occupied the town's former market hall, constructed in 1888, which the couple bought for £165,000.^[5] It contained 37 separate displays spread out over four floors.^[6]

In 2018, the museum was threatened with closure because it did not meet modern safety standards. The owners retrofitted the premises with additional fire doors and extinguishers.^[7]

In 2023, the premises closed following legal problems over co-ownership with Wayne Hemingway.^[8] Two years later, the property was put up for sale.^[9]

Objects in the museum included a variety of Chad Valley toys, bluebirds taken from the gates of the Blue Bird Toffee factory,^[3][10] tickets from the first National Lottery in 1994 and a Sinclair C5.^[5]

The museum was run without any funding or sponsorship and relied on word of mouth to build a reputation for its collections and displays.^[7] All of the museum's objects were popular and in everyday use at some point since the late Victorian era.^[10] Though many items were mass-produced with no perceived value when collected by the museum, they have since acquired significance as they are attached to visitors' personal memories and a view to how people used to live.^[3]

The Land of Lost Content has donated objects in its collections to various other museums and exhibitions. These include a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Festival of Britain in 2011, supplying 1930s posters to the Black Country Living Museum and furnishing a flat with contemporary objects in Balfron Tower as part of a National Trust display of Brutalist architecture in 2014.^[3][11]

• Museum of Brands