Alan Goldsmith?, owner and curator of the toy museum, was born during WWII, during a time in British history when so many sacrifices were made for the war effort in every walk of day to day life; toys were one of these sacrifices.
Alan?s passion for toys was ignited with the purchase of a small toy train when he was just seven. From that moment on he was hooked, over the years he has amassed an amazing collection of toys from every corner of the world dating from Roman times ? simple wooden dolls ? up to the 1980?s when modern technology in games took off with computerisation.
His collection became so vast that he decided to open the now world famous toy museum in 1991 to the public for all to enjoy. Since Alan first opened the doors there have been over 2.5 million visitors with many returning time after time as there is so much to take in, more than can be enjoyed properly in just one visit.
The House on the Hill Toy Museum has over 70,000 individual toys on display ranging from humble homemade toys, Victorian toys when they were mainly only purchased by the rich to the emergence of modern technology during the 1970?s and 1980?s.
Alan?s main dream of opening the toy museum to the public was to allow him to carry on collecting the rarest of dolls, teddies, board games, Hornby trains and robots etc for display to enable the visitor to see toys that may otherwise have been lost to public gaze forever.