Clarks opens up a shoebox of memories with museum to mark 200th year

Shoemakers Museum in Somerset village of Street displays everything from school shoes to Wallabees and Desert Boots

For some visitors, the museum may bring back memories of being fitted for their first pair of school shoes on a rather chilly metal gauge. For others, the cabinets of pristine Wallabees and Desert Boots may recall teenage obsessions with US hip-hop or Britpop movements.

Memories will also flood back for the many local people whose families made Clarks shoes for generations, when the box-fresh Shoemakers Museum opens in the Somerset village of Street, near Glastonbury, on Thursday.