00:02Welcome to Beamish, the living museum of the North where history is not confined to display cases.
00:10Spread across 400 acres in County Durham, the country's largest open-air museum uses working transport, buildings,
00:18costumed staff and animals to recreate everyday life.
00:22Our journey begins aboard one of Beamish's working trams, taking us into the 1900s town.
00:30This Edwardian street represents life in 1913.
00:34Its bakery, chemist, bank, printer and sweet shop recreate businesses familiar across the Northeast.
00:42The cooperative store was moved here from Anfield Plain with grocery, drapery and hardware departments.
00:48These are not simply static sets. Costumed staff explain how people worked, shopped and lived,
00:55with demonstrations, working horses and vintage vehicles filling the streets with movement.
01:01For children, history becomes something they can see, hear and experience.
01:06STEAM provides a link with the region's industrial story.
01:10You can jump aboard a train at Rowley Station, an Edwardian railway scene with waiting rooms, a signal box and
01:18a goods yard.
01:19Originally built near Concerts in 1873, it was later reconstructed at Beamish.
01:25Our journey takes us to the Georgian countryside.
01:28Pockley Old Hall shows domestic life in the early 1800s, while St. Helens Church was rescued from demolition and rebuilt
01:37here stone by stone.
01:38Next is the 1950s town, part of Remaking Beamish, an £18 million development supported by almost £11 million from the
01:50National Lottery Heritage Fund.
01:52Homes, shops, cinema, welfare hall and bowling green explore a period still within living memory.
02:00Personal recollections gathered from communities help shape the buildings and stories told inside them.
02:06Our final stop is the 1900s pit village and colliery.
02:11Its cottages, school, chapel and mine preserve the story of communities built around coal and the difficult conditions faced by
02:19the people whose work powered the region.
02:23Beamish was founded in 1970 by Frank Atkinson, who wanted to save a disappearing way of life.
02:30Inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, his idea became England's first regional open air museum.
02:38Now a registered charity, Beamish was named European Museum of the Year in 1987 and Art Museum of the Year
02:46in 2025.
02:48More than 50 years after first opening, it continues to bring the Northeast history alive at full scale.
02:56Support on TrayvlineOK.
02:59To
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