Brading The Experience – more fondly remembered as the Osborn-Smith Wax Works Museum – closed its doors for the last time on 3rd January 2010.
It is sadly missed. The quirky tourist attraction had titillated and terrified both Islanders and overners for some 45 years. Its closure has been a very sad loss for Brading and the Island as a whole.
The building housing the wax museum – formerly known as Elizabeth Cottages – is believed to have been built in 1499. However, the original owner of the museum – who was something of a showman – claimed it had been built in 1288 and was the oldest house on the Island.
Osborn-Smith Wax Museum opened in July 1965. In 2001, it was sold by the Osborn-Smith family and became Brading The Experience.
Sadly, the new owners failed to make a success of the business. At the start of the current century, it was attracting 60,000 visitors a year. A decade later, annual visitors had more than halved to around 25,000.
Some of the more memorable exhibits at the waxworks included the tragic chimney sweep Valentine Gray, the salacious ‘skivvy in the attic’ and the skeleton playing the organ.
A more in depth examination of the museum’s eclectic collection of exhibits may be found in the following Island Echo article.
After closure, the exhibits were auctioned in Dorchester, raising a 6-figure sum. A few wax figures from the Chamber of Horrors found their way to the Castle Inn in Sandown.
In 2018, further exhibits returned for an exhibition at a micro museum in Rectory Mansion – the site of the former wax museum – in part curated by Island Echo’s editor, Darren Toogood. At the time Island Echo’s office was based at Rectory Mansion.
In 2024, Rectory Mansion was sold at auction for £185,000. The building is now home to several business/retail units, with the upper 2 floors primed to be converted for residential use.
However, 1 famous former resident of Rectory mansions – the spirit of the unfortunate Frenchman Louis de Rochefort, who was murdered in the building while attempting to pass a message to the imprisoned King Charles I at Carisbrooke Castle – may still remain in situ…
His skeleton was uncovered by workmen in 1964. His story has been told in a further Island Echo article.
Such a shame when the Wax Works closed down
It was an excellent attraction.