Collections

The V&A Museum of Childhood houses the UK’s national collection of childhood objects that range in date from the 16th century to the present day. As well as toys, dolls, dolls’ houses, games and puzzles, the museum has a wealth of objects relating to other aspects of childhood such as home and childcare, play and learning, clothing, representations of childhood, archival collections and ephemera.

In the Museum, rare hand-crafted objects such as the earliest surviving English rocking horse from around 1605 sit alongside fondly remembered toys of the 20th century. Together, all these objects can give us an insight into how different children might have lived, thought and felt, through the things they were surrounded by.