A “time capsule” pharmacy is being auctioned off in a sale of a shut-down Cornwall theme park next month. 

Lay’s Auctioneers are handling the sale of items from Flambards Theme Park, which opened on the outskirts of Helston in 1976 until it shut down in November due to “rising costs and falling visitor numbers”. 

Aside from rides, Flambards also had exhibits including a Britain in the Blitz installation, 50 shops in a model Victorian village, and a full-size Concorde on display.

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The former Somerset pharmacy W.C. White Dispensing Chemist was set up since 1987, with auctioneer Caroline Lay calling it “phenomenal”. 

The auctioneers estimate the sale will fetch between £10,000 to £20,000.

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“The fascinating thing about this shop is that it was boarded up in 1909 and basically entombed for 80 years until 1987 when it was discovered as it is now,” said Lay.  

The auction page adds that White had worked in the pharmacy from 1880 until his death in 1909, and the shop had been left as it is by his son and granddaughters until the discovery by an auctioneer in 1987, when Flambards bought it for its theme park. 

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“It was sold to Flambards and everything was meticulously catalogued and brought down here and set up exactly as it is now,” said Lay. “It’s a Victoria museum in of itself.” 

As well as pharmacy artefacts, other discoveries included tea, poultry spice, tobacco, wines and spirits. 

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“It’s absolutely incredible,” said Lay. “There’s nothing like this really that I know of, particularly from this period in this condition – it’s so original!”  

Along with the pharmacy, there are around 1450 lots available to buy from the Flambards auction and they will be available to view for three days prior to the auction that begins on March 25. 

It comes after a ‘ghost sign’ for a pharmacy that traded over a hundred years ago was uncovered in a Margate escape room’s shopfront during a refurbishment last month.