AS our car crunches along the driveway of Sheila Crown’s detached country house I feel as though I am heading into the pages of some weird Beatrix Potter story or perhaps one of those risible horror B-movies where giant bunny rabbits or cow-sized ants terrorise the neighbourhood.

Only it isn’t the eyes of behemoth bunnies, super-sized spiders or colossal crocs that we feel are upon us – it is the bulbous peepers of… frogs. Lots and lots of frogs. They are everywhere: on the lawn, in the patio, occupying just about every room in the house and – we are talking thousands here – crammed into a disused granary.

Some are much larger than life, positively jumbo-sized in fact. And several – this is where it gets even crankier – appear to be playing musical instruments, or at least posing with them. These amphibians, however, are all inanimate.

Amidst more than 11,000 frogs there isn’t a genuine, breathing, croaking, hands-on slimy little toad to be found. Otherwise Sheila would run a mile.

“Ooh, I wouldn’t go near a frog – not a real one,” she shivers. She is not at all partial to their moist, clammy, sticky skin – or indeed, their “wiggliness.”

Whenever I read about someone’s compulsion to collect (be it stamps, beermats, toy soldiers, handcuffs, mangles, traffic signs… the list is endless) – and especially when the said obsession propels them into the Guinness Book of Records – I instantly think of Sheila Crown and her barmy green army.

Thirty eight years ago, in all innocence and without any ulterior motive, she bought an ornamental china frog. Just right, she thought, for that green-coloured study of hers. Once in situ it looked a tad lonely – a forlorn, friendless little froggy – so she bought another, and then another, and then… Somehow Sheila’s modest gang of green ’uns morphed into a rampaging horde of froggy figures fashioned from just about every material imaginable: silver, glass, china, porcelain, wood, pottery, plastic, copper, brass, leather and assorted squidgy cushiony stuff.

They ranged from loo-brush holders and eggcups to classy ceramics, vases and jewellery, acquired via a mishmash of outlets from catalogues and antique markets to swish London department stores and thrifty estate charity shops. Many are gifts from friends and family. Every Christmas, one suspects, is a froggy Christmas for Sheila.

“You’ll find something worth £2,500 next to something worth 40p,” she said of her collection. She even had a Picasso – a beguiling original pen and ink drawing effortlessly turned-out by the master. It is called Lecrafaud. Within 20 years the collection had come on leaps and bounds. Mother-of-three Sheila had swamped the family pad in London with around 8,000 artificial amphibians.

Relocating to a converted farmhouse at Baydon, a few miles from Swindon in 1999, it took several removal men several days to pack them all up and pack them all off. Sheila later spent the best part of nine months unpacking them all.

I first meet Sheila in 2002 when she reveals her plan to share her passion with the public at large by creating the UK’s first museum of its kind that will house her ever evolving collection of static ex-tadpoles.

It is to be called FrogsGalore, which has a nice ring, she feels. Admission is free – all you have to do is call up in advance. By this time Sheila’s family of frogs number exactly 10,454, which doesn’t include the ones that have just arrived in the post.

Among her most formidable web-footed companions are a couple of statuesque, Henry Moore-like giants, Harry and Sally, the work of sculptor Jill Berelowitz.

Over a cup of tea in the kitchen Sheila shrugs, with a mixture of amusement and resignation: “My collection of frogs has just spawned and spawned – it’s impossible to stop them. There are new arrivals every day. I can’t stop collecting them.”

It seems that neither she, nor her husband Stephen (known as St Stephen to friends, for his patience, understanding and frogbearance) can prevent this constant stream of green critters arriving at the front door. Whereas many of her prized amphibians are dotted around the house and its spacious garden, most now populate the museum, an impressive custom-built froggery created from the shell of a 2,700 square feet granary.

Inside I am confronted with more Kermits, Mr Jeremy Fishers and Toads of Toad Hall than I had imagined possible. The exhibits include themed ties, socks, jewellery, jigsaws, paintings, umbrellas, playing cards… impossible to list them all.

Sheila, who can sometimes be found padding around the house in furry froggy slippers, is especially fond of a bright red lipstick carved into the face of a frog, along with a hideously grinning fellow known as Zippy Frog, a zip-mouthed member of the Ranidae family who turns inside out into a prince when kissed.

She also has a frog styled piggy bank which – obviously – makes it a froggy bank.

The Froglady of Wiltshire, who doesn’t seem to mind being called hopping mad or “a lily pad short of a pond”, has no idea – and wouldn’t reveal anyway – how much she has lavished on her froggy hobby.

The impending opening of FrogsGalore – attended by 300 people – coincides with Sheila’s entry into the Guinness Book of Records as owner of the world’s largest private collection of frog-related memorabilia.

She did not so much frog-march into the records as leap, frog-like into them, surpassing the previous record holder by more than 8,000 frogs.

But really, how many frogs does a gal need? By 2005 Sheila, 56, decrees “well, not that many, really.” To the surprise of many, she puts the museum’s entire contents – all 11,471 of them – under the hammer.

Another house move is looming and she won’t have room for them all. The frogs, it is deemed, should hop it.

For collectors of All Things Froggy – and there are a worrying number of them about, it transpires – it really is The Sale of the Century.

Organised into 1,172 lots, the auction lasts two days and realises – gulp – more than £100,000. A Late Victorian glazed ceramic frog fetches £2,600, a Royal Dalton Lambeth ceramic £2,400, a glazed porcelain chess set £960 etc...

Former Frogophile Sheila is left with around 50 unsold items. “I will keep some of them because they are lovely pieces,” she says.

FrogsGalore, meanwhile, lives on in cyberspace – a museum which no longer exists in the physical world but can be viewed and enjoyed in all of its froggy glory on-line.

It is a haven as Sheila puts it – “for all froglets to share the fantasy of frogs”. It can be visited at: www.frogsgalore.com