Teddy Bears of Witney opened in 1985 as the first shop in the UK to specialise in selling new and old teddy bears.
Formerly an antiques shop, the double-fronted, sixteenth century Cotswold stone building provides a natural home for teddy bears. There is a lot to see including artist bears from around the world, limited editions by Steiff, Merrythought and other leading manufacturers, as well as a constantly changing selection of vintage bears and animals.
Museum
In addition to the shop, we have a free museum collection, which includes Aloysius, who starred with Anthony Andrews
in Brideshead Revisited.
The latest arrival in our collection is Happy, the wonderful circa 1926 Steiff bear,
which fetched a world record price at Sotheby’s in 1989.
Another characterful bear here is Bristol, a much-loved circa 1910 German bear, which was inadvertently left behind at Bristol Airport in 2012 before being reunited with his owner more than a year later. He is the inspiration for our Witney 2021 Bear.
There are many other old bears in our collection, each with his own story to tell. Many of these have inspired our unique range of Old Witney Favourites, which you can find in our on-line shop. One of these is another old-timer, here in Witney since March 2020. Bo is a circa 1905 cinnamon Steiff bear, formerly owned by Paul Volpp who, with his wife, Rosemary assembled one of the finest teddy bear collections in the world.
People
It has always been a vital ingredient of the ‘TBW experience’ to have staff who know about and are sympathetic to the bears we sell.
Both Ian Pout and Janice Parr have been at Teddy Bears of Witney since we opened. Janice travels to shows in Japan, California
and Germany with Ian.
Tracey came in 2013, Julie and Yvonne in 2017 and Val in 2019. We all love bears.
