Minnie the Lu Lu Terrier, Tunbridge Wells’s Most Famous Victorian Chinese Stuffed Dog

Say hello to Minnie, the Lu Lu Terrier, born in China in 1871 and died in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in 1883 and is now preserved, stuffed, in a glass case in the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery as perhaps their strangest exhibit. Tunbridge Wells was once the home of rakes and dandies, rather than yummy mummies and tired commuters and so quite the place for Minnie. The cabinet (a bit hard to see in this photo I admit) was created by Minnie’s owner with preserved flowers and pictures of wide eyed children. Though described as a Lu Lu terrier, no such breed exists officially but Minnie’s owner called her a Lu Lu terrier and so that is what she has remained – a stuffed, preserved, garlanded, ball of white floss from China in a glass cabinet in Tunbridge Wells. Seems happy enough to me….