Museum of Brands

#64

A time-tunnel through 150+ years of everyday stuff—packaging, adverts, toys, tech—arranged by decade so you feel how design, prices and priorities shift. It’s compact, nostalgic, and unexpectedly revealing about war, women’s work, health scares and the birth of ‘convenience’. Expect 60–75 minutes, plus a breather in the garden.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 11:00 – 17:00

Monday: 10:00 – 17:00

Tuesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Wednesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Thursday: 10:00 – 17:00

Friday: 10:00 – 17:00

Saturday: 10:00 – 17:00

What's not to miss inside?

Time Tunnel

Decades at walking speed

Shelf by shelf you watch typography, materials and mascots evolve—and values with them.

Pick your birth decade and find the thing you remember by smell alone.

📍 Main circuit

Wartime Shelves

Design under rationing

Plain wrappers, thrift tips, recycled tins—packaging learns austerity.

Count how many items switch from metal to card; scarcity leaves fingerprints.

📍 1940s section

Colour Boom

Printing tech meets pop culture

Fluoro inks, swinging mascots and supermarket aisles as theatres of persuasion.

Spot one logo that barely changed to today—and one that’s unrecognisable.

📍 1960s–70s run

Green & Clean

Eco claims and ‘healthy’ halos

Compostable packs, ‘plant-based’ badges—virtue goes mainstream on the shelf.

Read the back-of-pack: how many claims are about you, and how many about the planet?

📍 2000s–today

🤓 Fun Facts

Founder Robert Opie began the collection at 16 with a saved sweet wrapper—one teenager’s keepsake became a national archive of everyday design.

The museum’s ‘Time Tunnel’ layout makes advertising history legible without a lecture—you feel inflation, new materials and social change just by walking.

Original wartime packs show how brands adapted—less ink, fewer metals, smaller sizes—decisions driven by government controls and supply shocks.