The lawnmower, a 1920s Ransomes, cast iron, the green paint flaking in exactly the right places, sits next to a 1950s Atco with a sidecar (for the dog, presumably) and a 1970s Qualcast that looks like it was designed by someone who had never seen grass. The British Lawnmower Museum in Southport houses over 300 machines, including the lawnmower that belonged to Prince Charles and one allegedly used by Brian May to compose a Queen guitar solo. The curator, a man who has dedicated his life to the history of grass-cutting technology, will tell you, with absolute sincerity, that the first lawnmower was patented in 1830 by Edwin Beard Budding of Stroud, Gloucestershire, and that the invention changed the face of England. He is right. The British lawn, the suburban lawn, the village green, the cricket pitch, is a national obsession, and this museum is its cathedral.

Britain’s Strangest Museums: The Ones the Guidebooks Miss

The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising (Notting Hill, London, £10): Robert Opie, the man who kept his first cereal box at the age of 16, has assembled the definitive collection of British consumer packaging, from Victorian soap wrappers to 1980s crisp packets, arranged in a time tunnel that takes you through 200 years of design, typography, and the evolving visual language of commerce. The emotional impact, a tin of Lyle’s Golden Syrup, unchanged since 1883, the dead lion with bees swarming from its carcass (the biblical riddle, “out of the strong came forth sweetness”) still on the label, is unexpectedly powerful. The museum is a social history of Britain told through the objects that British people threw away. Do not skip the toiletries case. The Victorian toothpaste (charcoal and chalk) will make you grateful for modern dentistry.

The Pencil Museum (Keswick, Lake District, £5): Keswick was the birthplace of the graphite pencil industry, the Borrowdale graphite mine, discovered in the 16th century, produced the purest graphite in the world, and the museum, housed in a former pencil factory, tells the story with genuine enthusiasm. The highlight: the world’s largest coloured pencil (7.91 metres, 446 kg, certified by Guinness World Records) and the wartime “spy pencil”, a pencil with a hidden compartment for maps and a miniature compass. The museum shop sells the full range of Derwent pencils at factory prices. The museum café serves excellent cake. The combination, graphite history and Victoria sponge, is classically British.

The Dog Collar Museum (Leeds Castle, Kent, included in castle entry £30): A collection of over 130 dog collars from the 15th century to the present day, housed in a single room in the gatehouse of Leeds Castle. The 16th-century iron collars, with spikes designed to protect hunting dogs from wolves and bears (wolves were extinct in England by the 16th century; the collars outlasted the threat), are terrifying and beautiful. The 18th-century silver collars, engraved with the dog’s name and the owner’s coat of arms, are works of art. The museum is small, specific, and exactly the kind of thing that could only exist in a country with a deep affection for both dogs and history.

The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (Boscastle, Cornwall, £7): The world’s largest collection of witchcraft-related artefacts, housed in a 16th-century cottage on the Cornish coast. The collection, spell books, amulets, a witch’s mirror, a detailed history of European witch trials, is curated with academic rigour, not sensationalism, and the atmosphere is respectfully solemn. The exhibition on the history of the museum itself (founded 1951 on the Isle of Man, relocated to Cornwall after local opposition) is a fascinating study in how attitudes to witchcraft have shifted over the past 70 years. The museum is closed on Sundays. Check the website before visiting.