The Animal House

This is better than going to the zoo! There are no issues of animal cruelty and you don't have to look away when the monkeys start playing with themselves.

The animal house has a cuddly, stuffed toy version of every creature that Noah took on his ark. There are little "pocket money" toys to keep little ones happy and big 100 pound white tigers to keep Siegfried and Roy happy.

This is a place to take your kids on a rainy day, they could spend hours coveting and cuddling the teddies here.

Walking into the Animal House is like walking into a giant playroom. I'm not ashamed in the slightest (although maybe I should be, at 23) to say that I LOVE cuddly toys, and in here they've got shelves stuffed with stuffed animals from floor to ceiling. And don't just expect to find your regular bears, rabbits, cats and dogs either – they've got every single animal you can imagine, from the insanely cute to the ridiculous. I can't imagine ever desiring a stuffed ferret, for example... but actually it was pretty cute.

That's what's great about Animal House – it's totally different. No animal is excluded from it's cuddly collection, no matter how big, small or strange. Although the heaving shelves of stuffed toys are what hit you when you walk in, it doesn't stop there. Towards the back they have puppets, puzzles, stationary, money boxes, crockery, alarm clocks... all animal-themed, of course. This is a fabulous place for kids and for novelty gifts for your animal-loving friends. As one of the previous reviewers said: why doesn't every town have one?

A wonderland of animals from cats to snakes, hyenas to meer cats, giraffes to donkeys, it’s crammed with soft toys of all animal shapes and sizes, as well as finger puppets, board games and trinkets, life size gorillas and all sorts of animal crazies.

Great for kids and adults alike, it goes on forever and is stuffed up to the ceiling with other gifts such as mugs, cards, pencil cases, animal hats and masks, clocks, kids raincoats and all sorts of other wonderful playthings.

It can feel a bit claustrophobic though as it’s usually very busy and minimalist is certainly not a quality that the folk at The Animal House have embraced, they’ve opted for a more wild, manic shopping experience.

When you’ve walked through this shop, you think “why hasn’t every town got one? Its a brilliant concept, and its very well done indeed. The shop window is floor to ceiling, and all the stuffed animals are playing about there. Its not blocked off from the shop, so you can see right in, and there’s more … and more …. and more. The huge ones - a four foot gorilla, for instance, are the crowd pullers, of course, and are hugely expensive, but there’s pocket money toys and soft animals too. Keyrings. Cards, both playing and occasion. Board games. Window lights - anything you can think of that has an animal theme, its probably for sale.

You can also order online, on their friendly website, and just to cap it all, and make sure you actually go along to the shop - there’s usually a soundtrack playing in the shop itself. This shop is so much fun, I can hardly tell you. Let your Inner Child loose in here.