Athritis Care Day Trip to Beamish Museum 16^th August 2006

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Welcome to Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum, where the past comes to life. Beamish is quite unique. It's no ordinary British museum but a living, working life experience as it was in the North East in the early 1800s and the early 1900s.

Beamish is one of Britain's favourite open air museums, set in over 300 acres of picturesque countryside, it vividly recreates life in the North of England as it was in the early 1800s and the early 1900s. Beamish has won both the British Museum of the Year and the European Museum of the Year Awards. Beamish demonstrates the recent history of the NE region in a "living" way and provides entertainment and education for all visitors.
People from the past welcome visitors and interpret how the people of the North of England lived and worked.
Step on board our trams and you'll be transported into the past.

The Beamish tramway fulfils a dual function - it provides a transport system and also gives visitors a period tramride experience.

Coal, the 'black diamond', was once the life-blood of industry and a central part of life, particularly in the North of England. No recreation of the history of the region would be complete without a colliery and the people who worked and lived in and around it.

The fleet of trams consists of several carefully restored trams most of which date from the early years of the century. The tramway runs in a circle for over a mile with tramstops in The Town and near the other main areas of the Museum.
During the summer season a replica bus carries visitors between The Town and The Colliery Village. It is a copy of a double-deck bus owned by Gateshead Tramways in 1913.
Horse-drawn buses and charabancs were once a common sight and during the summer, visitors can often ride over part of the site in one of two charabancs.

Home Farm was originally an estate farm, managed by the landowner's bailiff, and used to show tenants good farming practice. Some of the traditional buildings have been rebuilt and others, like the "gin gan" and hemmel added.

The 1825 Railway - Pockerley Waggonway.
Now visitors can ride in replica 1825 carriages behind The Steam Elephant or the Museum's replica of "Locomotion No.1" built by George Stephenson in 1825. The original Locomotion No.1 headed the first public, passenger-carrying, steam train in the world - on the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825.

A magnificent 1822 locomotive, built by George Stephenson, and reputedly the third oldest surviving railway engine in the world, is the centrepiece of a period Running Shed. Nearby visitors can see "The Engineer's Drawing Office" and the Engine Drivers' bothy.

Railway Station 1913.
Railways were pioneered in the north east of England and spread rapidly throughout the world. Adjoining The Town, Beamish Station recreates a typical branch line country station. The passenger building, which includes a ticket office and waiting room for ladies only, dates from 1867 and came from Rowley, near Consett in County Durham.

Within the station area is a variety of freight rolling stock including coal wagons and an N.E.R. Class C 060 tender locomotive*, built in Gateshead in 1889, stands beside the passenger building.

The Town 1913.
The Town is an Award-winning recreation of a typical market town street of the early 1900s and is probably the most popular part of Beamish. Buildings from the region have been brought here and rebuilt and furnished. Costumed interpreters welcome visitors and demonstrate a past way of life.