The Powell-Cotton Taxidermy Museum at Quex Park

Every year on my birthday I like to visit the Natural History Museum at Kensington. Ever since I was a child I have been spell bound by the collections that encompasses everything from a moth to a meteorite. For my partner Michelle it is not such a happy experience. It doesn't really float her boat and to be fair she suffers the trip in silence each year. This year I was told we wouldn't be making the trip to Kensington and instead we would be heading out to Quex Park in East Kent.

To be quite frank I was stunned by what I found there. A collection of around a century past of animals from all over the globe that were beautifully and tastefully displayed in diaramas showing the beasts in natural settings. The quality of the mounts does not tally up in the mind with their age and is a long lasting testament to the passion and efforts of Major Percy Powell-Cotton and his family. The Natural History Museum of London DO NOT have mounts of the same calibre in their collections of a similar age.

If you have not visited before I strongly advise you to go, the experience is immersive, heady and inspiring. Where else can you go through a doorway into a small room and be confronted by two full elephants in a cabinet?

I have put together a few video clips of my trip there (the editing is rough) if anybody is interested in a peek at some of the displays.

 
Where else can you go through a doorway into a small room and be confronted by two full elephants in a cabinet?

I have put together a few video clips of my trip there (the editing is rough) if anybody is interested in a peek at some of the displays.



SMALL room LOL that was never a council house
great video just wish this place was closer looks like a great place to visit
cheers
Ray
 
Most serious hunters from the UK, Europe and beyond have visited the famous Quex Museum which I add is an amazing experience, I was extremely lucky to have visited in the days of Mr Harmen the curator whose attention to detail was second to none.
I recommend this place to anyone who shoots or hunts, bring the whole family they will gain much knowledge, there is so much to see and do and a lovely restaurant to reflect.
 
I agree - definitely worth a visit. A trip there was always the highlight of the school holidays many years ago. It is a fascinating collection
 
I used to run it and worked there for 36 years. Knew all the family very well and grew up with them. Not the same now I am afraid, since Mr Christopher Powell Cotton died. Present trustees know nothing of the history of the place. All the old staff left about 5 years ago.

I cleaned and restored all the mounts and behind the scenes cleaned just about every skeleton of every species to walk the African planes. We also were involved with a good number of researchers with regards to DNA samples from the spare skins in store. All of them are dressed in suspended arsenic and in wooden crates with full field notes collected by the major.
 
I used to run it and worked there for 36 years. Knew all the family very well and grew up with them. Not the same now I am afraid, since Mr Christopher Powell Cotton died. Present trustees know nothing of the history of the place. All the old staff left about 5 years ago.

I cleaned and restored all the mounts and behind the scenes cleaned just about every skeleton of every species to walk the African planes. We also were involved with a good number of researchers with regards to DNA samples from the spare skins in store. All of them are dressed in suspended arsenic and in wooden crates with full field notes collected by the major.

Wow

I've been there several times - would like to know a bit more about the history of the Major and his estate pse sikamalc
 
Its a really good exhibition and only just down the road from me have been there several times i think it has the largest DNA collection around
 
Last edited:
I have never been. I've known of it for twenty years. It's one of those places that's just too far from Leicester. One day I am determined that I will go.
 
Last edited:
I was lucky some years ago to visit behind the scene and looked at the collection of Gorilla skins, a certain Peter Carr was going to write about the Gorilla collection.
For the likes of Malcolm, it must have been the ultimate place to work with taxidermy.
Its a crying shame things have changed and I am afraid it is another of those British heritage places that's going to fall by the wayside.
 
I was lucky some years ago to visit behind the scene and looked at the collection of Gorilla skins, a certain Peter Carr was going to write about the Gorilla collection.
For the likes of Malcolm, it must have been the ultimate place to work with taxidermy.
Its a crying shame things have changed and I am afraid it is another of those British heritage places that's going to fall by the wayside.

Peter Carr-as in son of Norman Carr?
 
I might have added two and two and made five !

Norman Carr set up Kafue National Game Park and South Luangwa Game Reserve - in Zambia

He was influential in the development of modern game park management

He was a family friend and gave me my first job as a youngster after national service with the Rhodesian infantry
 
Last edited:
To my knowledge the person you are speaking of only came to the museum once. He bought a client with him and asked for the Curator. Showing him round it became abundantly clear that his knowledge of some of the game of Africa was lacking. Having pointed out that the pair of Walia Ibex in gallery 3 where not Spanish Ibex to him.

He certainly had NO IDEA of the primate collection housed there, and I have never heard of him attempting to write a book on this subject as he would have no knowledge of the collection. Most of the primates were collected by Fred Merfield and NOT the Major. The greater part of this collection was collected in three districts of the Cameroons, Lomie, Batouri and Yabassi. Many of the Gorillas were purchased off the local people by Merfield. He wrote a book called Gorillas were my neighbours, and I had the privilege of meeting and having lunch with his wife Hilda, who must have been in her early 70's at the time.

Merfield was also responsible for collecting a great many specimens for other large institutes and the PCM became a depository/agent and sold a good many of them. In exchange for selling a specimen the PCM retained one, and this is partly how the PCM managed to gain a large collection of primate material.

I am afraid that all the vast knowledge I had gleamed from my working with the previous long standing Curator of 40 years ( Mr Lester Barton) and before him Mr G F Pinfold, who knew Scott and Shackelton, was lost when I left.
 
It just goes to show what you hear is not always correct and I should not have repeated what I had been told.
I was shooting sometime ago with some friends and some persons unknown to me, when the owner of the estate [German] got onto the subject of the museum collection and I mentioned that I had been there and what I had seen.
I was told by two people there that a book was being written about British great ape hunters and that Mr Carr was writing it and had visited the collection for research, I can only apologise for repeating something that was clearly wrong.

My interest in African hunting and Gorillas stems from my Grandfather Jan Warskiewiecz, who hunted in Africa and amongst his trophy's were a number of eastern lowland gorillas, these were misplaced/ lost during or just after WW2, I never got to see his collection, so when I found I was going to visit the museum I had to ask the question, the rest is history..
However I must say, unless you had a sex change Malcolm it was not you that showed us around, it was a rather pleasant lady that showed myself and two other the collection.
 
Last edited:
Ha ha. I would assume your visit was about 7 to 8 years ago? In which case it would have been the previous director who was a women and was in post for about 2 years.
 
Back
Top