BEAMISH - THE LIVING MUSEUM OF THE NORTH
Beamish, an open air museum set in three hundred acres of beautiful County Durham countryside, vividly illustrates life in the North of England in the early 1800s and 1900s.
Visitors stroll down the cobbled street of The Town, to see the Dentist's home and surgery, Solicitor's office, Co-operative shops, a newspaper office, Sweetshop and Sweet Factory, Motor & Cycle Works, period branch of Barclay & Co's Bank and splendid Carriage House. The newest attraction in The Town is an amazing Masonic Hall, which tells the story of Freemasonry in the early 1900s.
In The Colliery Village guided tours are given underground at a real "drift" mine and a row of miner's cottages shows how pitmen and their families lived. There's a Methodist chapel and village school here too. Traditional breeds of livestock fill the farmhouse at Home Farm and, in the welcoming farmhouse kitchen, the farmer's wife goes about her daily chores.
Pockerley Manor is based on a mediaeval fortified manor house and recreates rural life of almost two hundred years ago. The small manor house, its terraced gardens and costume of the day are in complete contrast to the lifestyle of the early 1900s which the other attractions at Beamish portray.
Pockerley Waggonway illustrates the days of railway pioneering. Full-size working replicas of Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1, Hedley's Puffing Billy and an early 1800s 'lost locomotive', The Steam Elephant, take visitors on a short ride in carriages recreated from the early days of rail travel.
Beamish is open :- SUMMER (April through October) - Daily 10am to 5pm, last admission 3pm. WINTER (November to March) - 10am to 4pm, last admission 3pm, closed Mondays and Fridays. A winter visit to Beamish is centred on The Town, Colliery Village and tramway. Other areas are closed and, consequently, admission charges are reduced.
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Media Contact :
Jacki Winstanley, Publicity Manager,
tel.0191 370 4024, email jackiwinstanley@beamish.org.uk
Issued 12.01.09