Stories

As panto season comes to an end, we wanted to go behind the scenes and ask ZEEL, our Christmas artist for 2024 about the process of making a toy come to life from a sketch to a wooden character. Chiara interviewed Zeel who was speaking from his workshop in East Sussex. CS: Hey Mr. Zeel!…

As this year we celebrate 44 years at No. 44 at our upstairs shop in Covent Garden’s market building, we wanted to celebrate with a party. It’s a toy party and we invited ZEEL to draw up the guest list. Covent Garden is know for the theatres, the pantomimes, the fruit and veg (as it…

Dioramas inspired by patisserie delights and fake food. Theatrical miniature worlds to make your mouth water. Pop by the shop this autumn to join the feast created by multi media artist Jane Farrington. Chiara chatted to Jane ahead of the exhibition at the shop which runs from 12th September until 24th October 2024   Chiara:…

Claire Fletcher is a Hastings-based illustrator and toy collector. Her work can be enjoyed at Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop as part of the 44 Years at No. 44 exhibition, showcasing 44 vintage toys from the artist’s collection and the respective original illustrations by her. All these are for sale alongside the popular Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop Pop-Up…

Karina Harrison is a Polish-born dollmaker based in the UK. We’ve recently had a chat with the artist about her paper-mache and textiles creations, exhibited at the shop from the 27th February to the 26th March. Chiara: Let’s start with your doll exhibition currently on at the shop: what are the ideas and inspirations behind…

Dollmakers Miss Ella and Miss Kina join forces and visions to offer us a peek into their surreal worlds and the characters inhabiting them. Ahead of the exhibition we talk to Ella Goodwin, illustrator and designer of the popular Miss Ella doll kits. Ella’s dolls will be showcased and on sale at the shop from…

In 1884 Robert Louis Stevenson fell in love with the magical realm of toy theatres –miniature stages on which one could enact the spectacles of the day–at Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop. “If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children,” he wrote, “speed to Pollock’s.” Miraculously, one can still speed to Pollock’s Toyshop in…

Curious Pip (Sarah Burford)  is a doll and miniature maker as well as illustrator based in Bristol. Ever since she was a child, her main inspirations come from old Hollywood movies, old cloth dolls, vintage mannequins and 1930s-40s comic strip characters. A collection of her dolls in flawless classic Hollywood glamour will be available to…

Talking Toys at Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop  14 – 24th September 2023 An exhibition of objects from Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop and responses from the ‘In-heritage Group’: Gabriele Brambilla, Jason Cleverly, Geoff Coupland, Peter Maloney, Colin Priest, Jar Sukthana, and Rachel Emily Taylor. The ‘In-heritage Group’ was established over the pandemic by University of the Arts London…

Longtime collaborator of Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop Geoff Coupland aka Mr Zeel talks to Chiara about zines. Geoff runs the seminal Comic Club at Camberwell Art College with Peony Gent & Joe Kessler Alongside zine and toy making Geoff teaches illustration and has participated in our current exhibition ‘Talking Toys’ where the In-Heritage Group of the…

Like any respectable Victorian toy shop, Benjamin Pollocks cannot help but be filled with all sorts of everyday treasures: from colourful paper scraps to fragments of Christmas decorations, doll faces to miniature tea sets, stringless vintage marionettes to broken second-hand toy theatres. All sorts of vintage as well as contemporary ephemera can be found here!…

“When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid” (Poem by Longfellow) Hannah Dyson’s Nursery Rhyme Decorations exhibited at Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop in Spring 23 are exuberant and joyful interpretations, but here new team member Chiara talks to Hannah about the dark undertones of Victorian nursery rhymes…

Much of my ideas of what a perfect Christmas should be come from the book ‘An Edwardian Christmas’ by J.S.Goodall. Part of a series of 4 illustrated books on ‘The Edwardians’, the fashions of which were revisited in the 1970s when the books were published. J. S. Goodall was born an Edwardian in 1908 and…

This July I met with the artist and writer Charlotte Cory in Paris to discuss her new project for Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop ‘Acting Up’. Charlotte, on the way to meet me decided to explore the cemetery of Montmartre to find the tomb of French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas. Her interest piqued by a recent…

An exhibition of Handmade Dolls at Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop  1st April – 26th April 2022 (NOW EXTENDED UNTIL 24th May) Eileen Lam of Dolly Treasures Anthony Lewis Churchill Viola Ann Seddon This Easter Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop is celebrating the joy of making a doll. In lockdown many of us re-discovered the fun of playing and…

As a boy John Macfarlane was shown how to make a miniature theatre from a matchbox by his father. He has gone on to combine his love for architecture, art and music in a long and distinguished career in theatre design. His painterly visions have brought vivid life to some of the world’s best known…