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.