Quex Park Birchington United Kingdom CT7 0BH
01843 842168
Key Worker Discount:
£1 OFF the full admission price
The Powell-Cotton Museum at Quex Park was established in 1896 by Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton (1866-1940) to house natural history specimens and cultural objects collected on expeditions to Asia and Africa. Major Powell-Cotton was a pioneer in the use of the diorama to display mounted mammals in representations of their natural habitats. The Powell-Cotton Museum natural history dioramas are outstanding examples, unique to the UK, stunning for their size, quality and imagery. Today they still excite the imagination of young and old alike.The Powell-Cotton Museum has an internationally significant collection of natural history and ethnography, an extensive collection of ceramics, fine art, archaeology, firearms, and a comprehensive archive, all of which are available for research. Visiting researchers, ranging from University professors to young students embarking on their first projects find a truly astounding collection available for study by appointment. The primate material is world renowned and consists of almost 2,000 specimens. What makes it so special is that the Major was an excellent record keeper; for each specimen we have map references, longitude and latitude locations, detailed body dimensions, age, sex and external pathology with local names for diseases. Major Powell-Cotton also collected a range of ethnographic objects. In 2009-12 the Museum hosted a PhD research associate in a study of the archive film footage taken by Diana and Antoinette in 1930s Angola. This led to a Heritage Lottery Funded community project resulting in a reinterpretation and display of some of our Angolan collection.