Doll Museum

The RIVER DOLLS OF GOOLWA doll museum is closed.  Some contents are still available for sale. 

Contact us by email (lyn@riverdolls.com.au), mobile 0447 988 084, or arrange a visit to 33 Cadell Street, Goolwa.

Below are some items of interest during River Dolls' history.

Barbie Movie

With the release of Barbie The Movie, Mattel issued an interesting range of dolls. 

ABC and Sunrise Channel 7 Publicity

On 9 March 2021, Lyn was interviewed by Mel Bush from ABC Radio Hobart to mark the anniversary of the launch of Barbie at the 1959 Toy Fair in New York.  You can listen to Mel and Lyn's chat via this link.  On 16 June 2021, Lyn was interviewed by ABC Radio Perth's Christine Layton commenting on the Barbie doll made by Mattel to represent Julie Bishop.

We enjoyed the visit from weather presenter Sam Mack from Channel 7's Sunrise Breakfast program on 29 September 2020. See Sam's reports.

This private doll collection was opened for public display in 1999. It had over 3,000 items.  These included dolls, teddies, toys, and other childhood memorabilia.  Whilst the oldest dolls were from the 1890s, most of this collection concentrated on the 1920s to modern times. Hundreds of "celebrity" dolls brought back memories of favourite films, television shows, novels and history.

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River Dolls of Goolwa was the first Australian doll museum to be promoted by the American doll magazine DOLL READER. River Dolls of Goolwa was awarded the Fleurieu Peninsula 2000 Tourism Award for best new tourism development.

We had several doll's houses in our display. Each house took hundreds of hours of work to construct. One stunning building was lovingly created in 1981 by Mr Keith Botten and furnished by his wife, Dawn. Note that this magnificent dolls house has now been sold.