please empty your brain below

Great report on a Great Place, DG !
Sounds very similar to the Black Country Museum - which is also excellent for a grand day out.
Have you been peeking at my visits list DG? You made this one before me.
Been a very long time since I visited Beamish but it was excellent back then and is clearly even better now. Thanks for the update.
What's a steamhammer gate ?
At the risk of sounding sarcastic, it is a gate made out of an old steam hammer.

I love Beamish and have spent many a happy autumn day there, like all good north-east people. Christmas is even better.
Sorry I should have looked more carefully at the pictures or on Google streetview

Although strictly speaking that's an arch. I suppose you could call it a gateway, except it doesn't appear to have gates on it.
I still haven't got over visiting Beamish shortly after it opened and seeing a toy displayed in a glass case which I had played with ten years before (Corgi SRN4 Hovercraft,since you're asking). Sent a shiver down my spine which I still can't explain?
What a marvellous place! I want to go there right now.
Oops I'm wrong again, it does have gates on it.
I'd heard of this place but didn't really know what it was. It looks and sounds excellent, must go and visit! Thank you for a great post.
Visited Beamish about ten years ago and spent five hours there. It was fascinating! Always wanted another visit. Every now and then you can spot some of the exhibits in tv programmes set in the past.
Fantastic place been there once. Just a shame it's so far away.
I went with Mother last, a trip down memory lane for her as she's from Gateshead and those shops clung until the late 40's and 50's until they were swept away by the self service revolution.

That school also remained familiar to my 1940 born parents.

Talking to one of Guides the next cluster of buildings will likely be set in the 1950's 1960's when the new estates and shopping precints were being thrown up and the slum dwellers moved to their prized council homes.
Wonderful place. They used to have a steam train running back and forth from the station but I think that's long gone.

BTW, DG, have you ever been to the tram museum at Crich?
The steam trains were certainly running when I visited about four years ago. There were actually two separate steam lines - the Edwardian Rowley railway and the 1820s waggonway. They are shown in Beamish's publicity so I assume they still run, but maybe not every day.
Went over 25 years ago. Enjoyed it from what I remember especially the trams. Chrich tramway museum is also a fun, if more focused, day out.
I think Frank Atkinson deserves a mention. His imagination and drive were responsible for Beamish being set up. He died in December 2014 at the age of 90.
cf @ southlondonlad - me too...discovered something in a glass display case in the London Docklands Museum that had belonged to me...spooked me somewhat.
The co-op at Beamish was my grandmother's big "supermarket" and my mother remembers being sent to stand in the queue for goods during the depression years of the 20's ... and my aunt's brother (whose health was very dodgy after being gassed in the trenches in WW1) used to drive the double decker trams like they have there

been there a few times and love taking my kids, they've got a real sense of relationship with the past from the place
I've never been to Beamish (must go, sounds like I'd love it). It sounds a lot bigger than the Black Country Living Museum which is on the same principles - but the BCLM has added canals and boats - especially at their annual boat gatherings, when authentically historic-looking boats and their crews (if appropriately dressed) get to be locked in overnight.










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