From Ships To Pubs: A London Story About Storage Chests

When I first laid eyes on the circus clown trunk, I stopped in my tracks. The hand-drawn clown staring upside down across the front felt like more than decoration. It felt like a fragment of a lost world — an old fairground life. I remember when the circus came to town once a year. Posters glued to walls promised elephants, fire breathers, acrobats — and always clowns. Looking at the trunk feels like it was there backstage, stuffed with costumes and props, metal storage trunk waiting for the show to begin.

Old storage boxes aren’t just containers. They’re keepers of journeys. Before cheap mass storage appeared, trunks were the way people travelled. Built solid, heavy duty, sometimes decorated with brass corners or painted lettering. The funny thing is, even though this trunk looks beat-up, it works in a modern home. Minimal interiors actually make the colours pop. The scratches and paint chips add contrast you can’t buy storage trunk in a shop.