Toy Museum at Brooks Collectables

There’s a child hidden inside all of us! Have you visited the Toy Museum at Brooks Collectables yet? It’s well worth a look!

Toy Museum at Brooks Collectables

Brooks Collectables is a small shopfront at Waterloo Road which opened way back in 1948. Inside there’s an amazing collection of toys and memorabilia – all for sale or just to admire! There’s an amazing collection inside the glass cases – featuring all kinds of collectable displays from toys to movies.

But walk through Brooks Collectables and towards the rear is a fairly typical Blackpool gift shop. It’s a great gift shop and worth a visit itself – packed full of all the usual souvenirs and seaside trinkets. You can also access it through the front of the building from the promenade.

Upstairs though, up above the gift and collectables shops lies a world of wonder and the amazing Blackpool Toy Museum! Entry is for a couple of pounds, via a small gate at the bottom of the stairs (sorry there’s no lift). Climb the stairs to enter a world of yesterday and your own childhood…

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Visit Blackpool Toy Museum

Up the stairs is a marvellous, magical world, packed full of childhood through the decades. There’s cases full of model cars and trains, early electronic toys including a xylophone. Plus a full sized dalek!

There’s also a 5ft tall model of The Blackpool Tower, a scale model of the now demolished open air baths at South Shore and one of Derby Baths.

Look out for the amazing 10 x 14ft map of Blackpool dating back to a time before The Tower was even built. That’s fascinating and well worth stopping to take a good look at it. Spot Raikes Hall – the early location of Blackpool amusements – and the seal pool!

Which toys did you own? There’s rare die-cast Dinky toys, Corgi and more. Airfix models and military bands. There’s Edwardian and Victorian souvenirs, dolls house and doll collections. Plus coins, stamps, football programmes, subbuteo and much more.

We went to take a look around –

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History of Brooks Collectables and the Toy Museum

Brooks Gift Shop opened in 1948 on the corner of Waterloo Road and the Promenade in the Talbot Building. It had been built earlier as Slater’s Rock Shop, then used as a munitions store during WW2.

In the 1970’s the family opened a second shop under The Blackpool Tower and a third one in Pablo’s building opposite South Pier but they were still trading as Brooks Gift Stores Ltd at 1 Waterloo Road. In 1982 they moved to 66a Central Drive. But in 1998, and by then trading as Brooks Collectables, they moved back to number 7 Waterloo Road.