See Durham > Attractions > Beamish Museum
Beamish is a world famous open air museum telling the story of the people of North East England at two important points in their history - 1825 and 1913.
In 1825, the region was rural and thinly populated. The Industrial Revolution, particularly the coming of the railways, accelerated change. By 1913 the heavy industries of the region were at their peak.
Beamish stands in 300 acres of beautiful County Durham countryside, eight miles south west of Newcastle upon Tyne, twelve miles north west of Durham city. It is not a traditional museum. Most of the houses, shops and other buildings have been dismantled, brought to Beamish and rebuilt here. Some – Home Farm, Pockerley Manor and the Drift Mine – were here already. All of the buildings are filled with furniture, machinery and objects, real artefacts from our designated collections.
What sets Beamish apart from glass case museums is that the story is told not by labels but by costumed staff who are proud of their heritage and happy to share their knowledge with visitors.
 |
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.
 |
Opening Hours:
Saturday, 4th April 2009 to Sunday, 1st November 2009. Open 7 days a week from 10am to 5pm.
Last admission always 3pm.