Beamish Museum
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Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum is an open air museum located in the town of Stanley, County Durham, England. Beamish tries to show what life was like in a typical northern town in the early 20th century — much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to 1913. Aside from the main town however there is also the manor house and the railway which are based on 1825.
It is the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of County Councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) and it was the first regional open air museum in England. The museum was established in the 1970s under director Frank Atkinson. Atkinson was concerned to preserve the customs, traditions, and ways of speech of the region and adopted a policy of "unselective collecting", whereby local people could donate anything of the period to the museum.
The first exhibition was held in Beamish Hall in 1971. The site was opened to visitors for the first time in 1972.
The museum is 95% self funding, mainly from the admission charges of around 350,000 visitors annually.
[edit] Pockerley Waggonway
Beamish has its own railway, the Pockerley Waggonway, comprising an engine shed from 1825 and a short length of track. Two replica steam locomotives run on the railway, one of George Stephenson's Locomotion No 1 of 1825 and one of William Chapman's The Steam Elephant of 1815. The original Locomotion No 1 headed the first public, passenger-carrying, steam train in the world — on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. Visitors to the museum can ride in the unsprung carriages.
[edit] The Railway Station
A typical NER station is reconstructed here at beamish, The station itself came from rowley just a few miles from beamish museum, and it was demolished and reconstructed at beamish in 1975, in the yard there are a variety of wagons on display, under the footbridge the line goes down past the town ending in a open area just after barclays bank is passed, a distance of 1/4 mile. the line used to connect the railway station and colliery sidings until 1991 when the line between them was ripped up so a tram line could be laid. Sometimes there is a working steam locomotive at the station, hauling the wagons up and down latest locomotive was No 22 from Bowes Railway. there used to be a lot of working steam at beamish station with the NER J21 and NO 14 hawthorn leslie hauling the restored NER coach and wagons up and down, the working of locomotives ceased in 1995 due to NO 14 being at the end of its 10 yr certificate, J21 already been static since 1984.
Other exhibits include a coal mine, as well as houses, shops, and trams.
[edit] Town
The features of the town area include the original Annfield Plain Co-Operative Store, the original East Stanley primary school (a fact which has led to a special relationship between the museum and the school), a dentist's surgery, bank and a pub. It has been used for the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly the Catherine Cookson dramas produced by Tyne Tees Television.
