The ‘new’ Eureka is branded ‘Eureka Science + Discovery’, and is aimed at slightly older children. The original Eureka was groundbreaking at the time of its opening by being very hands on, when most other contemporary museums locked their exhibits away inside glass cabinets with ‘do not touch’ signs everywhere. Eureka Science + Discovery carries on with the same ethos, and there’s lots of things to touch and interact with. But there’s also more to read, in line with its older target age group of 7-14 year-olds.
Downstairs, you can learn about the body, and there’s an auditorium at the back. Upstairs there are two zones – one focussing on nature, and the other about science, especially in the home. Through a separate entrance is The Burrow, which is a play area for the under-7s and is included in the ticket, and of course there’s a shop and a café – again the café has a separate entrance and is open to the public.
We spent a full morning at the museum. Older kids may get more out of it, if they take the time to read the displays, but allow 2-3 hours for a visit.
Accessibility
Eureka Science + Discovery is based in the Seacombe ferry terminal in Wirral, and so you can catch a ferry across the Mersey to Liverpool and back. It’s a bit of a walk from the nearest Merseyrail station at Hamilton Square, but there are buses. There’s also a pay-and-display car park, although if you are driving and aren’t using Google Maps or the like, make sure you follow signs for the Seacombe ferry terminal. Although Eureka has been open a little while now, there aren’t any ‘brown signs’ yet for directions.
Being a brand new museum, accessibility is top-notch, with lifts and a changing places toilet. Extra support is also available for those with sensory issues.
Pre-booking of tickets is required, but then they’re valid as an annual pass. Whilst it’s not yet listed on the Max Card web site, if you have a Max Card, then one adult and one child get in absolutely free at present. Tesco Clubcard vouchers are also accepted but can’t be redeemed for an annual pass.
At one time in northern Britain, there were hundreds of ‘temperance bars’ – essentially pubs that didn’t serve alcohol. Nowadays, just one of the original temperance bars survives: Mr Fitzpatrick’s in Rawtenstall, Lancashire. We called in on the August Bank Holiday Monday, on our way to Gawthorpe Hall.
The Temperance Movement
The Temperance Movement came about during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century, as a way of steering workers away from the perils of drink. In England, the movement started in Preston in 1835 and spread across the newly-industrialised northern towns and cities. Followers of the temperance movement took a pledge to stay away from all alcohol, whether that be spirits, beer or cider. Therefore, temperance bars offered alcohol-free social spaces for the movement’s followers.
Temperance bars would offer a variety of flavoured non-alchohlic drinks, such as Sarsaparilla, Blood Tonic and Dandelion and Burdock. In our household, we’re heavy consumers of Vimto, and this fruity blend also came out of the Temperance Movement. Back in 2013, we went to an exhibition all about the Temperance movement at the People’s History Museum.
Mr Fitzpatrick’s
Nowadays, Mr Fitzpatrick’s is better known as a brand of cordials, which are on sale at many independent shops across the north of England and include the aforementioned flavours. They’ve hung on to this one remaining temperance bar, in the Lancashire town of Rawtenstall, where you can try their full range of cordials mixed with still or sparkling water. They also do milkshakes, and a decent food menu – we called in for lunch and our eight-year-old thought it was amazing. Upstairs, there’s a model railway suspended from the ceiling.
Whilst Mr Fitzpatrick’s is the last surviving of the original temperance bars, it’s an idea that seems to be coming back around. There’s a BBC piece about the ‘rise of the sober bar’ from 2019, and I’d argue that the various dessert bars that have popped up in majority Muslim areas in the UK are a response to the need for non-alcoholic social spaces. Many young Generation Z adults don’t drink, regardless of religious affiliation, and it’s nice to have bars that offer a wide range of interesting soft drinks. Even if you’re not teetotal, it’s a bit depressing when you’re not drinking and all there is on offer is cola or lemonade.
Accessibility
Being a very small and old building, accessibility isn’t great – the toilet is up a narrow, steep staircase although accessible facilities may be available at the nearby Rawtenstall Bus Station. Free parking for up to three hours is available nearby but you’ll need a Parking Disc (Sundays and Bank Holidays are free all day). Regular X43 Witch Way buses run towards Burnley and Manchester.
Rawtenstall is the northern terminus of the heritage East Lancashire Railway, which runs from Bury.
Burnley is known for many things, including its football team, its history as a mill town, and the birthplace of Sir Ian McKellan. But it’s also home to Gawthorpe Hall, a stately home connected with the mill trade, which is now in the care of the National Trust. We went to visit it last week on the August Bank Holiday Monday.
Technically, Gawthorpe Hall is in the neighbouring town of Padiham, although the two pretty much flow into each other. There has been a building on the site since the 14th century, although much of the hall dates from the 16th century. It was then extensively rebuilt in the 19th century, and passed into National Trust ownership in 1970. Prior to the National Trust taking it on, it had been in the Shuttleworth (later Kay-Shuttleworth) family throughout its history. Over the years, the Shuttleworths hosted a number of famous historical guests at Gawthorpe, including Charlotte Brontë and King George VI.
Inside Gawthorpe Hall
Inside, there are three floors to explore. Downstairs there’s the dining room, with a balcony, and the drawing room which has some very detailed plasterwork on the ceiling. There’s also the usual shop in the entrance hall.
Upstairs is home to the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, run by an independent charity that was founded by Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth, the last of the Kay-Shuttleworths to live at Gawthorpe. Rachel was a keen collector of textiles from around the world, and some samples from the collection are on display across the middle floor.
Up to the top floor, and there’s a family room, which is home to some toys for visitors to play with. There’s currently an exhibition about Gawthorpe Hall in the 1600s, including its links with the infamous Pendle Witch Trials. There’s also the Long Room, which spans the whole of one side of the house, and the Huntroyde Room; a bedroom with a four-poster bed.
The gardens and parkland
Outside, there are some formal gardens, although they’re not very extensive and situated around three sides of the hall. The grounds beyond are more extensive, although much of these were closed off due to damage from Storm Lilian. The gardens and grounds are normally open from 8am until 7pm at this time of year. There currently isn’t a café; I gather that there used to be one in one of the outbuildings but it looks like it’s been closed for some time.
Accessibility
The gardens and grounds should be accessible to all, and there are disabled toilets (but no Changing Places toilet). There are steps up to the hall, although once inside a wheelchair can access the ground floor, and an interactive computer workstation to view images of the upper floors. There is no lift.
The nearest railway station is Rose Grove, which is a 35 minute walk; Burnley Barracks and Burnley Manchester Road stations are a little further away. There are apparently frequent buses to the end of the drive from Burnley bus station, and then it’s around 10 minutes walk up the drive.
Although the National Trust own Gawthorpe Hall, it’s operated by Lancashire County Council and so it doesn’t take part in any free entry promotions. However, National Trust members do still get in for free, as do holders of a National Art Pass.
Heritage Open Days
Over the next couple of weeks, various historic places will be open for free for Heritage Open Days, and this includes Gawthorpe Hall on Saturday 14th September. Normally, entry is £7 each for adults (under-18s are free), so if you’re not a National Trust or National Art Pass member, this is an opportunity to explore the hall for free. However, maybe consider arriving by public transport; the car park on site is small, and we struggled to find a parking space when we visited.
This is now the third mine that we’ve been down in as many months; last month, we went to the one in Beamish, and in May we went to the one in the Black Country Living Museum. Caphouse Colliery, the mine at the National Coal Mining Museum, is different as it’s primarily a deep mine, and so the tour enters and exits using a lift in a 140 metre deep mine shaft. There is a drift entrance to the mine as well, but it’s mainly there for emergency evacuations now and isn’t part of the tour.
Mining ceased at Caphouse in the 1980s and it became a museum shortly after. So, whereas Beamish and the BCLM are set in the early twentieth century, here the mine tour covers the full history from the early 1800s right up to the more mechanised latter times. Though coal is no longer mined here, the mine is still regulated as an active coal mine and all battery powered devices have to be surrendered before the tour – hearing aids being the only exception. As such, I don’t have any photos from down the mine.
Back on the surface, we had a look at the indoor exhibitions, about miners’ lives and a special exhibition marking forty years since the Miners’ Strike. Around the colliery, you can see the old steam engine that powered the lift mechanism, and the Pithead Baths, where miners would start and end their shifts with a communal shower. There was also a cage with some canaries – the literal canaries in a coalmine.
We then caught the narrow gauge paddy train which takes you to the other end of the site, where there are new stables for horses and ponies. Ponies were still used down coal mines as recently as 1994, and so when the museum opened, it served as retirement stables. Whilst the ponies there now are rescues, none of them have worked down a mine.
As it was the summer holidays, there were some additional activities on for kids. A large sandpit was outside the Hope Pit to recreate a beach; when miners eventually became eligible for a week’s paid holiday, thousands would go to various UK seaside resorts like Blackpool, Skegness and Cleethorpes.
We had a good time; in retrospect, I’m surprised it’s taken us so long to go back, as it’s only just over half an hour’s drive away.
Accessibility
The underground mine tour is mostly accessible to wheelchair users, but the no batteries rule applies. Some of the buildings aren’t accessible due to their age. There are accessible toilets but the nearest Changing Places toilet is a ten minute drive away. More information is available on the web site.
Parking is available on site; it’s normally free, but there’s a £5 charge in summer (which in turn gives free use of the paddy train). There’s an hourly bus service between Wakefield and Huddersfield which calls at the museum.
I managed to span the list of things we did whilst on holiday in Northumberland to eight blog posts, representing the seven days that we were on holiday. Because it was a short holiday, there were lots of places that we could have visited, but didn’t have the time. Here are some of them.
Alnwick Castle
Whilst we did visit The Alnwick Garden, which is adjacent and shares a car park, we didn’t go into the more famous castle next door. It dates from the 11th Century, following the Norman Conquest, although it was extensively re-modelled in the 18th and 19th Centuries. It’s often been used as a filming location, with the first series of Blackadder set there. More recently, it was used in last year’s Dungeons and Dragons film, and featured in the first two films about that wizard boy whose enemy cannot be named.
Howick Hall
Not far from Seahouses is Howick Hall, the ancestral home of the Earls Grey. The hall itself is open to visitors, as are its gardens and arboretum, and of course there’s a café where presumably there’s an expectation that you’ll drink Earl Grey Tea. Whilst the Earls Grey have owned the site since the 14th Century, the current house is less than 100 years old, having been substantially rebuilt following a fire.
Craster
Craster is another pretty fishing village like Seahouses. Whilst Seahouses claims to be where kippers where invented, Craster Kippers are more well-known. Craster is also known for its lobsters and crabs.
Dunstanburgh Castle
Had we visited Craster, we could have also called in at Dunstanburgh Castle. It’s a ruin – moreso than Warkworth Castle – and it’s just over a mile’s walk from Craster where the nearest car park is. We saw it from a distance as it’s on the coast, but the long walk from the car park and the fact that it’s a ruin put us off.
Beadnell
One of the main roads into Seahouses from the A1 passes the village of Beadnell, and so we drove past it multiple times without actually going into the village itself. It’s also a harbour, and looked quite pretty in some paintings that we saw.
Grace Darling Museum
Up the coast in the village of Bamburgh, and just a short walk from Bamburgh Castle, is the RNLI’s Grace Darling Museum. Grace Darling lived on the Farne Islands and was a daughter of one of the lighthouse keepers. She came to fame in 1838, when she was 22 years old, by risking her life to rescue the stranded survivors of a shipwreck – of the 62 people on board, all but three were rescued. Whilst she died a few years later aged 26, she managed to go down in history as a local heroine. The museum opened in 1938 to mark 100 years since her dramatic rescue.
Whilst the museum was very close to where we were staying, we’d pencilled it in for a day of bad weather. As it was, we were really lucky with the weather and so didn’t need an indoor backup plan.
Northumberland Zoo
Our summer holidays normally result in a zoo or aquarium visit, but we didn’t find the time this year. Had we stayed for longer, then we may have gone to Northumberland Zoo. It’s less than 10 years old, and tends to have smaller animals; the largest are medium-sized cats like servals, lynx and snow leopards.
I’ve no doubt that we’ll have another holiday in Northumberland at some point in the future, and we may well visit some of these places that we didn’t manage to fit in.
This is the eighth, and final, blog post about what we did on our 2024 holiday to Northumberland. Previously, I wrote about Cragside, and today is about our visit to Beamish.
‘Wait a minute’, you may be thinking, ‘Beamish isn’t in Northumberland’. And you would be right – Beamish is in County Durham. But we called in on the way home and so I’m counting it as part of the holiday.
Beamish is an outdoor, living museum – very similar to the Black Country Living Museum that we visited back in May. It’s split into different areas, each representing a different time period, from the 1820s through to the 1950s. I’ve been a few times, and all three of us last visited in 2019 for my 35th birthday.
Beamish is huge, and it’s now just about impossible to see everything in one day. So, as we’d been before, we strategised and focussed on visiting a few key areas that we wanted to see.
1820s Landscape
This is the area set 200 years ago, around Pockerley Old Hall, a farmhouse and one of the few buildings that was in situ and not rebuilt on the site. Elements of the farm have been there since the 15th century. At the farm, there are a few horses and pigs to see, and a brand new tavern where we had lunch.
This area is also is home to a waggonway, which was a predecessor to the railways and has a replica of Puffing Billy to haul visitors up and down a short section of track.
1900s pit village
Jumping forward, and there’s the pit village – a small community around a coal mine, set around the peak period of coal production in the area. You can go down the Mahogany Drift Mine, which was a real mine – if you go down a closed off mine road and keep going you’ll end up about a mile away. The village shows how people lived – there’s a school, church and several miners’ cottages.
1950s town
This bit was still being built when we last visited, and is now mostly complete. In a way, this felt like the oddest bit of the museum seeing as the houses are just like those that friends used to live in. You can go into the houses, and they have been decorated as they would have been when new. There’s also a playground and a high street with a toy shop, cinema and appliances shop. You can book to have your hair done in a 1950s style, and there’s a fish and chip shop.
It’s the first time in a while that a setting in Beamish reflects a time in living memory.
1900s town
Joined onto the 1950s town is the 1900s town, one of the older sections of Beamish and probably the most well-known. It’s expanded somewhat over the years and includes many transplanted buildings, including a bank, sweet shop, pub, co-operative store and a pharmacy. It’s certainly the busiest bit of the museum and the most complete.
This was all we had time to see – the weather was starting to turn, and we had a two hour drive home ahead of us, so we missed the 1940s home farm, the 1950s farm and the fairground.
Getting around Beamish
Beamish is a large site, and unless you’re super fit, you’ll probably want to make use of the transport options provided. One of the things Beamish is known for is its tramway, which forms a circuit of the site and connects most (but not all) of the areas. At peak times, there are three trams in operation. They’re all heritage trams, although not all from the North-East of England – one is from Oorto, although painted as if it was from South Shields.
For the areas not reachable by tram – namely the 1900s Pit Village and the 1950s Town – there are a series of heritage buses running. These are all diesel, but there’s a plan to run electrically-powered trolleybuses into the 1950s town in future.
Wheelchair users can use a replica classic bus which has had a foldaway lift added at the back. It’s an on-call service reserved for those with mobility issues.
Accessibility
Accessibility at Beamish is pretty good, considering that there are lots of old buildings – you can tell that some thought has gone in to ensuring access where possible. But that doesn’t mean that every building is accessible, although the newest areas like the 1950s town are the most accessible. Indeed, the 1950s town is home to a Changing Places facility, and many of the buildings have lifts to access upper floors where needed. There’s an extensive accessibility guide on the web site.
Tickets for Beamish are valid from one year of purchase; as mentioned, it’s more than one day out and so you can visit as many times in the subsequent 364 days without paying again. At time of writing, tickets are around £28 each for adults and £17 for children. A Max Card discount is available on tickets bought on the day. However, I would recommend buying tickets in advance as we had to queue for quite a while to purchase them on arrival.
There are regular direct buses from Newcastle, Sunderland and Chester-le-Street. Chester-le-Street is also the nearest mainline railway station, served by regular Transpennine Express and occasional LNER and CrossCountry services. The bus services seemed well-used when we went, and drop you right outside the front entrance.
This is the seventh blog post about what we did on our 2024 holiday to Northumberland. Previously, I wrote about Lindisfarne, and today is about our visit to Cragside.
Cragside was built for Lord William Armstrong, who you may remember from Bamburgh Castle. Unlike Bamburgh Castle, Cragside was never a castle and it started life as a small fishing lodge. But over time, it was extended into a large stately home, and hosted many famous guests, including royalty. Also, unlike Bamburgh Castle, Cragside is no longer in the Armstrong family, and today it’s one of the National Trust’s top tier properties.
What makes Cragside interesting is its claim to be ‘the original smart home’. As you will know from my various blog posts about Home Assistant, home automation is an interest of mine. Cragside was one of the first homes to have electricity, back in the 19th century. And, due to its remote location, this was powered by hydro-electricity rather than burning coal. There’s also a water-powered lift, and an early dishwasher.
The later extensions to Cragside are the most extravagant, including a massive marble fireplace and a huge billiards room with heated seats. There’s also a ‘lab’ where you get to see demonstrations of some of Armstrong’s innovations.
Gardens and grounds
The Cragside estate is extensive, and there’s a ‘Carriage Drive’ which is a six mile, one-way circuit that you can drive around. We did the drive to be able to access the play area to let our eight-year-old burn off some energy at the end of the day, and saw a young fox on the way.
Away from the house, across a steep gorge (which is spanned by an iron bridge), are the formal gardens. These came into National Trust ownership later than the house, and some restoration work is ongoing. The greenhouses are home to a number of tropical plants that wouldn’t otherwise grow in the Northumberland climate, and again, technology is in use here. The huge plant pots sit on metal turntables, so that the pots can be easily rotated to ensure even growing.
We spent all day at Cragside, and still didn’t get to see everything. Thankfully, overnight accommodation is available in some of the old worker’s cottages, should you choose to visit for more than one day.
Accessibility
Although Cragside house was one of the first to have a lift, it’s currently not in use, and there are some quite narrow corridors. If you’re unable to climb stairs, then you’ll only be able to see the ground floor of the house. There’s a free shuttle bus that travels between the main car park, visitor centre (in the stables), house and formal gardens.
Entry is free to National Trust members, but as it’s one of their top tier properties, the prices for non-members are comparatively high – around £25 each for adults. It’s also exempt from many of the promotions that offer discounted entry. But it’s a full day out with plenty to see.
This is the sixth blog post about what we did on our 2024 holiday to Northumberland. Previously, I wrote about The Farne Islands, and today is about our visit to Lindisfarne.
Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is an island just off the Northumberland coast, further north (and separate from) the Farne Islands, which we visited earlier in the week. Unlike the Farne Islands, Lindisfarne is inhabited all year round, and connected to the mainland by a causeway.
Lindisfarne Castle
From a distance, the standout feature is Lindisfarne Castle, on the eastern tip of the island. Now in the custody of the National Trust, this ancient castle was converted into a holiday home in the early twentieth century. The interior is laid out as it would have been around 100 years ago, and each room is full of objects of interest. There’s plenty of information on offer about the history of the building, as well as its owner and architect. You can head up to the top for great views back across the island and up the coast.
The National Trust is also responsible for Gertrude Jekyll’s Garden, which overlooks the castle. It’s an interesting example of a garden that’s designed to both look pretty, and withstand the exposed coastal conditions. The plants have been specially chosen for the hardiness and their ability to survive sandy soil and strong winds.
The village
There’s a small village on the island, which is home to a few pubs, shops, cafés and a post office, should you wish to get a special postmark on your postcards home. There’s also St Aidan’s Winery, best known as the producers of Lindisfarne Mead, which is produced on the island. We may have bought a few things there to take home.
Lindisfarne is also a very religious place, and you can go to the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory, which is now looked after by English Heritage. We didn’t go; having been to the castle, had lunch and done a bit of shopping, time was slipping away and we needed to get back across the causeway.
The causeway
The causeway disappears under the sea at high tide, so it’s worth checking the safe crossing times. Thankfully, these allowed for a decent day out when we visited, but we needed to have left by 3:30pm, otherwise it would be after 10pm until we could leave the island again by road. You’ll probably find that the shops, cafés, pubs and attractions vary their opening times to match the tide times, which means that if everything is about to close, you probably need to get back to your car and get away. There are warning sides all over the island about the dangers of getting stranded, and yet it’s still approximately a monthly occurrence.
Whilst raising the causeway, or building a bridge, has long been discussed, it’s opposed by residents. I suppose being able to drive onto an island that it regularly cut off from the mainland has its charms. Although personally, I think the French had the right idea with Mont St Michel, where you park on the mainland and travel across on a shuttle bus.
Accessibility
As well as the causeway, the island is reachable by boat from Seahouses. There’s also a bus service from the mainland. The main car park on the island charges £10 for all-day parking. The village is mostly on flat ground and shouldn’t present too many issues for people with mobility issues.
However, if you do have mobility issues, maybe give the castle a miss. It’s up a steep hill with uneven cobblestones, narrow doorways and lots of steps. Entry to the castle is free for National Trust members, or £11 for adult non-members.
If you’ve been reading the reviews of the places we’ve visited on our recent trip to Northumberland (especially to The Alnwick Garden and Bamburgh Castle), you’ll note that I mention whether there’s a Max Card discount available. A Max Card is a discount card available to parents of children with special educational needs or disabilities, and/or children who are ‘looked after’ (i.e. in foster care).
We recently got one, as our eight-year-old has additional needs. Each Max Card is valid for up to two years, and offers discounts to various attractions across the UK. The discounts vary – sometimes it allows free entry for the child, or it may be 25% off. The aim of the card is to make fun family days out more financially accessible to families with children who have additional needs, or who are being looked after. Having a child with additional needs can incur additional expenses – we recently paid out £400 for one of our eight-year-old’s assessments – and so being able to have discounted days out is helpful. It also offers good experiences for looked after children who may have experienced trauma.
Where you can use your Max Card
The list of venues is quite extensive. Many (but not all) National Trust properties are on there, and locally to us is Eureka, the national children’s museum. Whilst we were in Northumberland, we were able to get discounts on three of the places we visited. As well as museums and zoos, there are discounts available at places like Go Ape, theme parks and Haven resorts. All of the Merlin sites are included too, such as the Sea Life Centres, Warwick Castle and Alton Towers.
The discounts available vary by venue. In some places, it’s a percentage discount, whilst others may allow a certain number of people in your party to go in free as long as at least one full price ticked is purchased.
It’s worth noting, however, that most places will only accept a Max Card if you buy tickets on the day in person – many will not offer the discount if booking in advance online.
How to get a Max Card
Because of the eligibility criteria, you can’t simply order a Max Card online. Instead, they’re are available through a local distributor, which is usually the local authority or a charity. For Calderdale, where we live, the distributor is the charity Unique Ways, which supports parents of SEND children. There’s a £6 administration charge to collect the card, but we have already saved far more than this on our Northumberland holiday alone. It has also meant that we could join Unique Ways as members, and access their workshops and training courses, which I hope will be helpful to us in future.
One of the things that Northumberland is known for is its castles. We’d already been to Bamburgh Castle, and passed near to Alnwick Castle. Warkworth Castle is further south, and to the east of Alnwick and near Alnmouth. It’s an English Heritage property.
Unlike Bamburgh, Warkworth Castle hasn’t been extensively restored. Whilst the outer walls remain, most of the interior buildings have gone. The keep is still there but it’s not furnished inside – just a series of empty rooms. Although each room had a metal plaque labelling it, there was a real lack of information about what each room was used for. I’m sure Warkworth Castle had an interesting history, but I didn’t feel like I learned much whilst there.
Thankfully, there was a medieval falconry display by Raphael Historic Falconry taking place when we visited. Whilst I’ve seen plenty of falconry displays over the years, it was good to learn about how birds were used to hunt during the medieval period. They’re back again next week; if you are going to visit Warkworth Castle, maybe do so when there’s an event on, as otherwise you may struggle to fill even half a day there.
Accessibility
Wheelchair access is possible to ground floor, but not to the keep or any other indoor areas. Alnmouth is the nearest railway station, and from there you can catch a couple of bus services – there’s a 15% discount if you arrive by public transport. A car park is available on site. English Heritage members get in free.
