The Beamish Collection and Photographic Archive

Abstract

The North of England open air museum is situated at Beamish, about five miles from Chester-le-Street, in the heart of the Durham coal field. For the student of labour history travelling to Beamish, the names of the towns and villages around are magic, synonymous with pit life and struggle, evocative of hardship and heroism, filling the mind with folk tales of Tommy Hepburn, Martin Jude and poor Jobling. This is the land of Shields and Jarrow, Follingsby and Wardley. If you live your history, you must hear again the tramp of pit boots over the town moor, the rasping sounds of silver and brass and see with your inner eye the silken ripple of the lodge banners as you journey to the former home of the Shaftos. The museum occupies a 200-acre site of rolling and wooded countryside, beneath which lay a great mineral wealth, long since ripped from the earth. Iron, lead and coal were ruthlessly hacked out to help build the ships, make the railways and create the bloody, raw and red history of North East industrial capitalism. The wish to recreate and recapture the recent past (1850 to the present day) of 'Geordie' life in all its aspects inspired Frank Atkinson, the dedicated founder and present museum director, to create Britain's first open air museum. Mooted in 1958, it took twelve years to acquire the Beamish estate as a permanent home, the purchase finally being made by the Durham County Council. Frank Atkinson's own records of local historical objects formed a basis for the museum's acquisitions from 1960, and it was first opened to the public for an introductory exhibition in 1971. It is now one of the most exciting preservation ventures in this country. Jointly owned by the four North Eastern County Councils, Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear, it is well on the way to becoming financially self-supporting. Last year 221,240 visitors brought in over ?160,000. This is not a static museum in any sense of the word. Beamish moves, lives, grows, loved and cared for by enthusiastic staff and a multitude of voluntary helpers, the 'Friends of Beamish'. The scale of the museum is life size, but it is a full life, for Atkinson refuses nothing connected with life in the North East. Here you will find 'Tiny Tim', a hammer weighing seventy tons. Nearby, a steam navvy built by Ruston Bucyrus weighs in at one hundred tons and dwarfs 'The Astonisher', a maroon and gold painted steam roller by John Fowler of Leeds, a machine of nostalgic beauty that would mist the eyes of John Betjeman. There is a reconstructed Victorian colliery using buildings and engines from worked-out mines. The winding engine is dated 1855 and the boilers to supply steam for all the various engines came