Kittens getting married and bunnies at school: How eccentric Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter put dead animals in bizarre positions The surreal images show kittens marrying, squirrels playing cards and a monkey riding a goat They are made of animals stuffed by Victorian eccentric Walter Potter He ran a museum in Bramber, Sussex, which was open from 1861 to 1970 The tableaux were sold off for over £500,000 in 2003 But now the images have been collected in a new book These bizarre and somewhat sinister images look like something out of a twisted fairytale. The macabre tableaux show stuffed animals in a variety of human situations, including a wedding attended solely by kittens and a primary school class where all the pupils are bunnies. But in the Victorian era - and right up to the 1970s - they were part of a thriving tourist attraction which drew in thousands. The purrfect wedding: In this display more than a dozen kittens are posed and dressed up like they are at a wedding I do: The kitten bride, groom and vicar were posed up to mimic a real-life wedding ceremony Detail: The kitten guests are given very intridcate costumes, including earrings and a waistcoat chain From 1861 until 1970 the models were on display at a museum attached to the White Lion pub in Bramber, Sussex. The intricate scenes were created by eccentric Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter between 1855 and 1890. Little is known about Potter's life, but the dioramas he created have a legacy all of their own, and in their heydey were so popular that the platform of the local railway station was expanded to accommodate extra visitors. Other scenes show a sombre procession of birds walking past a coffin, a group of rats entranced by a game of dominoes, and one particularly bizarre image shows a very dapper monkey taking a ride on a goat. Learning to multiply: These rabbits have been arranged like pupils in a Victorian school Touching: The animals are given realistic expressions and poses Eccentric: The scenes were crafted by Walter Potter, pictured holding a stuffed fox When Mr Potter died in 1918 his descendants took over the museum, but as the Victorian fashion for stuffed curiosities waned the museum ceased to be a viable business. After it was forced to close in its Bramber location in 1970, the attraction moved to Bright then Arundel, Sussex, where it still drew in more than 30,000 a year. The collection was then bought up and moved again to Cornwall, where it stayed for almost 20 years. But in 2003 this exhibit too was forced to close, and the whole collection went to auction. Quite the party: One of the scenes shows kittens politely taking afternoon tea Sombre: This scene shows two birds carrying a third inside a tiny coffin Enclosed: Some of the exhibits were shown in ornate displays, such as this Curiosity: The museum, pictured in action, was extremely popular with the public of the past When a single buyer for the lots could not be found, the dioramas were sold off individually by London auctioneers Bonham's, and made more than £500,000. The tableaux are now scattered across the world in the hands of enthusiasts, but the curious images have been brought back together in a new book, Walter Potter's Curious World of Taxidermy. Co-author Joanna Ebenstein, a 41-year-old from New York who runs the website Morbid Anatomy, spent six months in London researching the book. 'These artefacts look utterly bizarre to us now', she said. Parlour game: These squirrels are shown relaxing over a game of cards Precision: These rats enjoy a game of dominoes using miniature playing pieces But they were once seen as quaint, charming and amusing, fit for the parlour or to delight the family on holiday. My two favourites are The Kittens' Tea & Croquet Party and The Kittens' Wedding. They both have this wonderful tension between perversity and a completely over-the-top cuteness. Each kitten is fully realized as its own character, and rendered with great charm. For a man who was not a particularly skilled taxidermist in the conventional sense, he definitively had a certain gift, and I think you see that most with the kittens. Ms Ebenstein said Mr Potter's motivation for making the scenes were unclear, but that it was a much less bizarre occupation in the Victorian era. Bizarre: Some of the stranger creations include a monkey riding on the back of a goat, left, and a stuffed kitten which was born with two faces, right Attraction: The museum, pictured here at its original site in Bramber, Sussex, was a big draw She said: 'We know very little about Walter Potter and why he made these pieces. But we must remember that at this time, taxidermy was so popular and so much a part of the fabric of daily life that every village had its own practitioner. The fact that Potter chose this medium-and that was so popular with a mass audience for around 150 years-is not as bizarre as it seems to the contemporary viewer. He worked in the 19th century, long before the practices of spaying and neutering. Cats and dogs simply bred, and kittens and puppies were routinely drowned to dispose of excess numbers, especially in the countryside, where Potter lived. There would also have also been an ongoing supply of strange or freak animals-most of which die in infancy-from local farmers who knew Potter, his proclivities, and his tiny museum. Walter Potter's Curious World of Taxidermy is available in hardback for £20.