Dragonfairy's daily life: Beamish

Last month I went to Beamish museum, in County Durham. It's an open air museum with a hands on approach.

The museum is set out into different areas, each of which showing a different period in north east England's history. There is a 1825 wagonway, called Pockerly Wagonway which has rides on different replica steam wagons. We went on a reproduction of the steam elephant, which was based on a wagon which used to take coal from the mine at Wallsend to the dock on the Tyne.

Next to this is Pockerly Manor house, which has been in the grounds since the 1400s, it now shows what life was like in the 1800s. There are several people in period costumes explaining different things and doing traditional crafts, like baking and candle making. I particularly liked the bed in a wooden box, as this reminds me of the description of the bed in Wuthering Heights.

The view from Pockerly Manor

There is also a pit village, which is made up of different buildings which have been taken down from other places in the north east and rebuilt. They include a 1913 school, terrace houses, a church, and some mine buildings. There is also a drift mine you can go down, and a traditional fish and chip shop.

Pit Ponies

The School

A Pit village bedroom

The other sections are Home Farm which is a farm set during world war 2 in the 1940s.

There is a main farm house, and a terrace of cottages across the road. There is also a few animals, and vegetables and things growing. There was also a lot of old farm machinery. In the house there was two ladies cleaning the old copper kitchen equipment in period dress, and old war songs on the radio. There was also an old air raid shelter in the garden, I was how small it was.

There was also a small outside cafe selling soup and drinks. We just had some of the pop we had taken with us, at a picnic table.

I liked the house in this section, and the animals, although none of them were very cooperative. The horses in the stables both had their backs to us, and the first pig we saw was busy ignoring us, even the ducks in the pond kept bobbing under the water when I tried to get a photo :)*

The last section we visited was the town which was set around 1917, this has old shops, a newspaper press, a bakery, a bank as well as a dentist. I loved this section, although it did feel like everywhere was trying to sell something. There was also a lovely park, a victorian train station and fair ground rides.