Drinking Bear back at toy museum after restoration

A former Brighton Palace Pier attraction has been restored and returned to a museum of toys.

A workshop in Scotland has refurbished the Drinking Bear and returned it to its home in Kent – the Toy Museum at Penshurst Place and Gardens.

When 2p is inserted, the bear pours water into a mug, appears to drink it, yawns and then its eyes light up.

"It's looking very good because it's been sensitively restored," heir to the stately home, Philip Sidney, said.

He told Secret Kent that the bear's coat had been replaced with a recycled coat.

The machine, built by Parisian toymakers Roullet & Decamps, would once have been an end-of-the-pier attraction, Mr Sidney added.

The toy museum reopened in August after National Lottery-funded restoration coincided with its 55th anniversary.

It is located within a converted 19th Century carpenters' workshop on the estate.

According to Mr Sidney, the museum was opened because his grandfather, first Viscount De L'Isle William Sidney, "wanted to add something to the visitor experience".

He said his grandfather happened to know Brighton toymaker Yootha Rose, who lent him a lot of her collection.

The museum collection also includes "some of the family toys from down the years," Mr Sidney said, "including my old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dolls and a doll's house that my father and his family used to play with."

"It's really important to have the heritage of toys and to know what people in the past are playing with," he added.

"It's a way of getting away from the screen and getting in touch, literally, with how things are played with."

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