Museums are fascinating places, teaching you about science or history or showcasing beautiful art. Some thought, go slightly left field and don’t fit any kind of usual museum brackets. The morbitorium in Pontywaun is certainly one of those unique museums. We take a look inside one of the strangest museums you’ll ever come across.
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00:00 We are family friendly but Adam's family friendly more than normal.
00:08 There are plenty of great museums dotted all around.
00:10 Small, large, history museums, art museums and there are some specific ones that don't
00:15 quite fit that mainstream museum bracket.
00:17 We're here in Pontywain just north of Newport and inside this unassuming house is the Morbitorium.
00:23 I would tell you what's inside but the clue is in the name and this place really speaks
00:27 for itself.
00:28 It started small, just kind of a shelf to begin with and then that kind of turned into
00:33 a bookcase and then a whole room.
00:35 Some bits I still got off eBay so I've got a few obscure searches which occasionally
00:40 will pop up results and a lot of it now is from other collectors so the more, the harder
00:47 bits to come hold of, some of the human skulls and things like that which I've got there,
00:52 you can't get those on eBay.
00:53 So it's grown up quite organically and it got to the point where it was such a large
01:01 collection that it was kind of like what am I doing this for?
01:04 Am I doing this for me?
01:06 I loved it but it got to the point where I had to open to the public because it was just
01:11 silly having this much stuff, just keeping it to myself.
01:15 Dave has been collecting oddities for the last ten years and he finally got to quit
01:18 his day job last year and run the Morbitorium shop and museum full time out of his house.
01:23 You can see around me that his collection has a bit of everything, from taxidermied
01:27 animals to medical instruments and everything in between.
01:31 The Ouija boards are always popular, if popular is the right word.
01:35 A lot of people I know will get bad energy from them but there's never been anything,
01:40 I've never had anything weird happen here in the four years, five years since I've had
01:45 the house and I've filled it with all sorts of potentially very scary stuff but then we've
01:50 got a lot of mummified things, mummified cats, taxidermy, creepy dolls, there's literally
01:56 something for everyone.
01:59 There's a few bits in here which people might not be totally comfortable with but it's the
02:04 nature of the beast.
02:06 I'm not sure I personally would be able to walk around this place at night but Dave says
02:09 he feels right at home amongst his collection and loves welcoming the public into the museum.
02:14 I love it.
02:16 This is my living room as well.
02:18 We do most of our living next door in my partner's house and we'll watch Tally have dinner over
02:23 there so she'll stay on her side, I'll come over here and I'll watch horror films surrounded
02:28 by all this stuff and I find it quite warm and cosy, it's like a little nest.
02:33 We've got a lot of families coming, lots of cats, lots of different age groups and demographics.
02:41 It's always really surprising the people who turn up to have a look and who are really
02:46 into it, you think, well you look far too normal.
02:51 So as Dave welcomes guests from around Wales and the rest of the UK, it might be a bit
02:56 of an acquired taste but there certainly is something for everyone.
02:59 James Peter Watkins, reporting from Wales.
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