Clowns Gallery-Museum

The Clowns Gallery & Archives holds costumes, props and a reference library devoted to clowning. It began in 1959 at Holy Trinity Church in Dalston, east London, and later shared its collection with a second site at Wookey Hole in Somerset. The Dalston venue occupied the church’s old vestry until it closed in 2018 for health and safety reasons. The Wookey Hole museum, opened by Gerry Cottle of Clowns International, has also been placed in storage. Both sites once displayed the Clown Egg Register, a unique archive of painted eggs that record individual clowns’ make-up designs. The Clown Egg Register was started in 1946 by Stan Bult, chemist and founder of Clowns International, who drew faces on chicken eggs to prevent plagiarism. Real eggs were later replaced by ceramic ones, though the public can no longer view the collection. Bult painted 450 eggs himself until 1966, leaving only 24 intact. Janet Webb added 76 between 1988 and 1994, Kate Stone painted 144 and reproduced 59 of Bult’s designs, and Debbie Smith worked on the register from 2010 to 2023 before Julie Proctor took over. The museum’s story appears in popular culture, including the 2012 film Stitches and episodes of Criminal Minds and The Avengers. Its egg register has inspired comics and novels, notably Terry Pratchett’s Men at Arms. While the original venues are closed, the archive remains a living record of clown artistry and identity.