Beamish Open Air Museum, County Durham
Celebrating North-East England’s Role in the Industrial Revolution
Apr 11, 2009
In 1825, the economy was largely agricultural. Peace had returned to Europe after the Napoleonic wars. Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott were the popular authors. Into this centuries-old rural setting had recently come the first canals and passenger railways.
By 1913, industrialism was at its peak. The North-east built the ships that carried its coal, steel and engines around the world. Europe would soon be engulfed in another war, in which the products of industrialisation would be employed to devastating effect.
Pockerley Manor and Stephenson’s ‘Locomotion’
A short walk from the entrance is Pockerley Manor, a genuine manor house, which has stood on this site since 1720. It has been restored and furnished to show how it looked in 1825. Its gardens and vegetable plots are tended with as much care as they would have been at that time.
Below this is a waggonway dating back to the sixteenth century. Along this, visitors can take short trips pulled by a replica of George Stephenson's 'Locomotion', the famous engine that drove the Stockton to Darlington train. Inside the nearby shed, is a locomotive built by Stephenson in 1822, and reputed to be the third oldest surviving railway engine in the world.
From Pockerley, tram rails lead past open fields and woodland to the town. All six trams in the fleet are authentic vehicles, built as early as 1901 and remaining in use until the 1950's. Now meticulously restored, they run continually, along with replica buses and limousines of the same period, transferring passengers between exhibits.
Reconstruction of a Durham Town
The town is a reproduction of a typical, thriving town of 1913. Many of the buildings were brought here, stone by stone, and reconstructed to their original plans. They include a Co-operative shop from nearby Annfield Plain, an inn from Bishop Auckland, a bank, a sweet shop, and a garage and cycle shop complete with authentic vehicles. A newspaper office has a print shop on the first floor, where a printer demonstrates his skills with metal type.
Opposite the town park and bandstand, is a row of Georgian houses of the type inhabited by tradesmen and professional people. They include a dentist's surgery, solicitor's office and music teacher's house. The railway station was transported here from Rowley village, near the former steel town of Consett, ten miles away.
Beamish Colliery Village and the Mahogony Drift Mine
A further tram or bus journey, or ten-minute stroll, brings one to the mining village, dominated by the wheel and engine house, inside which stands the winding gear from Beamish Colliery, still in working order, despite having been built in 1855. A short distance from this is the Mahogany Drift mine, which was opened in the 1850's. Here visitors can taste the damp, cramped conditions the miners endured while hewing the coal that powered industry.
The village consists of a school, Methodist Chapel and row of miners' cottages, where the living conditions of the miners' families can be contrasted with those of the more prosperous members of the community as seen in the town.
Education and Research Facilities at Beamish
The schoolchildren of the surrounding towns make extensive use of the facilities, often dressing the part for a day spent in, for example, the mining village, where they might be taught a lesson by a suitably stern, cane-wielding schoolteacher.
Beamish Museum also houses an archive of 100 000 historical photographs and local newspaper cuttings, dating from 1860 to 1960, and encourages historians to carry out research into early steam railways, wooden waggonways, coalfields, banking and historical landscapes.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
