Kent Museum of the Moving Image crams ‘35,000 years’ of culture into two-storey house.

Behind a domestic front door in a narrow street in the Kent seaside town of Deal, a museum is celebrating two centuries of cinema – or, as the founders insist, 35,000 years.

“The history of cinema is the history of the moving image, and that goes back to flickering shadows on the walls of painted caves,” said Prof Joss Marsh, one of the co-founders.

Deal does not have a cinema but the hunger for the moving image is palpable. The museum’s exhibits include cameras, posters, props, original artwork, as well as moving images created by 200-year-old optical toys before film was invented. The museum is the creation of the renowned film archivist David Francis and his wife, Marsh, a historian of popular culture.