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From the outside, it's an unremarkable industrial warehouse, home to Duke's Auction House. But the stench of turpentine marks it out from the other buildings on the Grove Industrial Estate in Dorchester, Dorset. It's the first clue that inside lurks a haven of Victorian taxidermy.
Step in, and you'll see a Bengali tiger on its hind legs, 8ft tall, lunging claws-first (and canines first) towards you. Behind him is a peacock, glorious tail splayed behind it.
To the right are three zebras, a camel, baby rhinoceros and seven lions, the lioness twisted on the ground, sinking her incisors into a bloodied antelope. All in all, there are 250 animals, many of which are the treasures of an eccentric 19th-century professor and explorer.
Elsewhere are grotesque figures: shrunken monkey heads on spikes, Siamese lambs conjoined at the head, a velvet coffin with the body of a 16-year-old Congolese boy (complete with an elephant's head stitched to his corpse), and dozens of glass-eyed waxworks with liver- spotted skin or daggers plunging into their chests.
Oh, and a blue dress once worn by Princess Diana.
Needless to say, the potential buyers are terribly excited by the goods on offer. 'Crikey!' says Tim MacPherson, a local photographer, on seeing the menagerie. His 10-year-old daughter Scout stops in shock for a moment before she can walk on.
Antiques dealer Julian Rogers gets out his mobile phone. 'You need to see this!' he tells his friend Douglas, the owner of Alice's antiques shop on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, West London.
Michael Ridley, director of a local dinosaur museum, is spellbound. 'I don't usually touch taxidermy. But, cor blimey!'
The only ones who stride in unfazed, eyes to the ground, are businessman Robert Ball, 58, and his well-heeled partner Josephine, 57. They own everything in the room and are 'absolutely gutted' it's being auctioned off tomorrow.
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