Sylvanian Families shop manager Ben Miller-Poole with a Sylvanian friend

FOR 30 years children have pressed their faces up against the window and turned to a parent
and asked hopefully: Can I have the cute rabbit?
. . . Or the mouse? Or the squirrel? Or the mole?

But now the dedicated Sylvanian Families shop in Highbury, an emporium that takes customers into the series’ enchanting woodland world, is about to put the closed sign up.

The decision to close has come about as the owners are retiring and selling the property.

Manager Ben Miller-Poole, 42, said: “The shop has never been about stacking it high and selling it cheap, it was about creating a world that when they come and visit us, it was like stepping into Sylvania the place – all very charming and olde worlde. Even now, when people walk in here, toy shops are few and far between, especially independent ones, we like to keep it quite old school.”

He added: “It’s the real end of an era, and while it’s sad, we’re trying to celebrate that three decades for an independent shop is pretty incredible. We’ll miss our collectors. And we just want to tell them to keep going! Sylvanian Families is not going anywhere – keep collecting.”

Since announcing the closure planned for April, the news has spread like wildfire online and on social media in particular.

Mr Miller-Poole said that a video of the shop has gone viral on TikTok, which has brought customers new and old into the shop to “tick it off their bucket list” before it closes.

“People are so enthusiastic about the brand, they love Sylvanian Families,” he said. “It’s just a massive trip down memory lane – people always pick out particular ones and say ‘oh, I had that one’ or ‘oh, I wanted that one.’ So, you know, the reception of the news has been really nice.

“There’s been a lot of sadness, but there’s also been a lot of shared fondness, which really helps us deal with it.”

Mr Miller-Poole has worked in the shop for 19 years, and began collecting Sylvanian Families when he was just seven.

“That’s how I came to know the owners of the shop, actually,” said Mr Miller-Poole.

“When I was about 11 years old I used to write into the Sylvanian Families Collectors’ Club, and in those days it was still pen and paper – no email, no social media – and you used to get a letter back, and it was written as if it was the Sylvanians writing back.”

Mr Miller-Poole got a letter back from two Sylvanian characters named Rose and Taylor Timbertop – Angela and Simon Harwood in real life, who were running the club and would ultimately open the Sylvanian Families shop in Mountgrove Road.

Mr Miller-Poole made his first journey to the shop in his early 20s, and Rose was there to greet him.

“She had never seen a photo of me, but she knew who I was, just from the letters,” he said. “I carried on buying Sylvanians for my collection as an adult, and I got an email out of the blue from Rose Timbertop asking if the address they had on file for me was correct. It was an old work address and I had moved jobs, so I told her that, and she asked if I would be interested in coming and working for them, and I said yes.”

Mr Miller-Poole said: “To all of our customers who have been here since the very beginning, writing us letters, sending us cheques in the post, and coming to visit us – we’d like to thank all of them, we couldn’t have done it for 30 years without the support of all of them.”