Which English town's Museum and Art Gallery has the largest collection of shoes in the world?

Northampton Museum and Art Gallery is a public museum in the Cultural Quarter of Northampton, England.

The museum has been collecting footwear since the 1870s and now boasts the largest collection of shoes in the world, which was designated as being of international importance by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997. The ground floor is given over to the display of some of the museum's 12,000 pairs of shoes, spanning the period from the Ancient Egyptians to the present day.

There are also two galleries dedicated to footwear: Life & Sole focuses on the history of shoemaking and contains a re-creation of an old shoe factory; Followers of Fashion concentrates on the history of fashions in footwear throughout the centuries. Some of the paintings on display reflect the museum's focus on footwear, such as the 17th-19th century Dutch and Flemish works by Jan Miel and Hendrik van Oort featuring cobblers, shoemakers and shoeshiners. As long-time Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection, curator June Swann played a significant role in its development. She began in 1950, and worked there for 38 years.