Clowns Gallery-Museum

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Clowns Gallery-Museum
Holy Trinity Church, Dalston in Hackney.JPG
Greater London UK location map 2.svg
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Location within London
Established1959;64 years ago (1959)
LocationHoly Trinity Church, Dalston, England
Coordinates 51°32′39.6″N0°4′23.3″W / 51.544333°N 0.073139°W / 51.544333; -0.073139 Coordinates: 51°32′39.6″N0°4′23.3″W / 51.544333°N 0.073139°W / 51.544333; -0.073139
TypeClowning museum
DirectorMattie Faint (Mattie the Clown)
Website clownsgallery.co.uk

The Clowns Gallery-Museum is a museum of clowning. Established in 1959, the collection contains costumes and props from famous clowns, as well as a reference library, [1] and is home to the Clown Egg Register.

Contents

History

The collection is split between the museum's two sites, the Holy Trinity Church, Dalston, and Wookey Hole, Somerset, England. [2] The museum was established in 1959 in Dalston and the collection was split into a venue in Wookey Hole in 2007. The Dalston museum is situated in what was the vestry of the Holy Trinity Church. [3] It was threatened with closure in 2014 but remained in place. [4] The Wookey Hole museum is run by Gerry Cottle, vice president of Clowns International. [1]

Clown Egg Register

The Clown Egg Register is an archive of painted ceramic and hen's eggs that serve as a record of individual clowns' personal make-up designs. [5] The clown egg tradition began in 1946, when Stan Bult, a chemist, and founder of Clowns International, took to drawing the faces of club members and famous clowns onto chicken eggs. [6] The egg gallery was created because according to an unofficial rule, no two clowns are allowed to have the same makeup. In order to ensure that clowns weren't copying each other's makeup style, the practice of painting each unique design onto an egg began. Real eggs were originally used but were later replaced with ceramic eggs. The gallery is open on the first Friday of each month. [5]

References in Pop Culture

- The museum is mentioned by Spencer Reid in season 13 episode 17 of the American crime drama Criminal Minds .

- The museum is additionally mentioned in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series book "Men at Arms"

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clown</span> Comic performer often for childrens entertainment

A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wookey Hole Caves</span> Series of limestone caverns in Somerset county, England

Wookey Hole Caves are a series of limestone caverns, a show cave and tourist attraction in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset, England. The River Axe flows through the cave. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for both biological and geological reasons. Wookey Hole cave is a "solutional cave", one that is formed by a process of weathering in which the natural acid in groundwater dissolves the rocks. Some water originates as rain that flows into streams on impervious rocks on the plateau before sinking at the limestone boundary into cave systems such as Swildon's Hole, Eastwater Cavern and St Cuthbert's Swallet; the rest is rain that percolates directly through the limestone. The temperature in the caves is a constant 11 °C (52 °F).

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wookey</span> Human settlement in England

Wookey is a village and civil parish 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Wells, on the River Axe in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the village of Henton and the nearby hamlets of Yarley and Bleadney where the River Axe travels the length of the village. There used to be a port at Bleadney on the river in the 8th century which allowed goods to be brought to within 3 miles (5 km) of Wells. Wookey is often confused with its sister village Wookey Hole, site of the Wookey Hole Caves.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holy Trinity Church, Dalston</span> Church in London Borough of Hackney, United Kingdom

Holy Trinity Church, Dalston, also known as the Clowns’ Church, is a Church of England parish church in Beechwood Road in the London Borough of Hackney. It is in the parish of Holy Trinity with St Philip Dalston and All Saints Church, Haggerston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All Saints Church, Haggerston</span> Church in London Borough of Hackney, United Kingdom

All Saints Church, Haggerston, also Church of All Saints, is an Anglican church in Livermere Road, near the junction with Haggerston Road, in Haggerston in London Borough of Hackney, east London. It is part of a parish with Holy Trinity Church and St Philip Dalston.

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David Roualeyn Findlater "Roly" Bain was an English priest and clown who preached and performed as Holy Roly. He helped set up the organisation Holy Fools.

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References

  1. 1 2 "The Clowns Gallery-Museum's History". Clowns International. Archived from the original on 4 October 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  2. Taylor, Jeremy (12 July 2013). "First Person: Matthew Faint – 'I run the clown egg register'". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  3. Adams, Tim (7 June 2015). "Send out the clowns: why are they losing popularity?". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  4. Polyviou, Natasha (30 January 2015). "A matter of laugh and death: what to expect at the Joseph Grimaldi service". Time Out. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  5. 1 2 "Clowns Gallery-Museum London". Time Out London. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  6. Fagundes, David; Perzanowski, Aaron (2019). "Clown Eggs". Notre Dame Law Review . 94 (3): 1313–1380.