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Published: December 19th 2017
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Woolly says – It had been a quiet and uneventful journey from the chilly north to our next port of call, with a hazy sun in the sky and Christmas songs ringing in my ears my only disappointment was that my surprize for the journey wasn’t going to happen. Knowing the women’s love of all things Potter I had thought to stop at Alnwick Castle where some of the films were shot, being us however the website told me it was closed, having then investigated Bamburgh Castle as another option only to find that they had also barricaded their doors to all humans and mammoths. Hopefully the Beamish Museum in Newcastle would be welcoming us with open arms and pints of stout. I’m not sure he’s thinking of the same place that were heading to! Woolly says – A fifteen minute drive according to the satnav, we made good time although there didn’t seem to be any signs and as the satnav directed us into a Nova Hotel I had a feeling that we might not be in the correct place. Jo disappeared into the reception and reappeared waving a piece of paper with the post code on, with the satnav reprogrammed we set off once more. The scenery was lovely but although close to our destination we still hadn’t seen one the very useful brown tourist signs, so I wasn’t holding my breath. As we took another right turn the museum was directly in front of us, not sure how anyone is supposed to find it but at least we had. Now to meet up with some old friends….it’s complicated because one of them is Jo’s old friend but Zoe and I have met neither him nor his wife, Jo also hasn’t met his wife so it’s a bit strange to use the term old friends.
Pete and Maria were waiting for us, I last saw Pete around 1985 so were gong back a few years. Having introduced each other and ignored Woolly’s command to get moving as Beamish waits for no Mammoth, we paid for our tickets and made our way into the museum itself. Woolly says - Beamish was the vision of Dr Frank Atkinson, the Museum’s founder and first director. Frank had visited Scandinavian folk museums in the early 1950s and was inspired to create an open air museum for the North East. He realised the dramatically-changing region was losing its industrial heritage of coal mining, ship building and iron and steel manufacturing along with the communities that served them. Similar ethos to the Black Country Museum and hopefully as good. Our first stop was towards the 1900 Pit village and the pretty Pit Village Methodist church built in 1854. Although bitterly cold inside it was beautifully done but certainly not a place to linger in given the temperature inside compared to the outside area. Next door was the school, I grinned at Zoe knowing that Victorian schools tended to have a problem with lefthanders, luckily for her now lessons were taking place. The building was split into three classrooms covering all ages that would have attended, if they could afford to. The small desks of the nursery part were very cute, the walls were covered in informative information for the children of the time to learn from, it was a lot better than other school buildings I have entered in the past.
Opposite the school were the old mining cottages, were whole families had flourished in small and often cold homes.
Woolly says – The smell of wood burning in the grates and shortbread baking in the oven was wonderful, not sure I would have enjoyed the cold flag stone floors under my paws in the winter months though. The yards at the rear had a variety of doors leading to coal sheds and a great find for myself of a toilet, you can never have to many toilets in my mind. The large mine area was most impressive and the man running the steam engine that bought the coal and the miners up and down to the mine felt we needed a lesson in the local dialect. Having ‘wey aye, man!’ and ‘Hoo's ya fettle, hinney’ a number of times I thought I was getting it down to a tee, pet, I’ll be native in no time. The village was in full Christmas time and we were all excited to meet the reindeer as Maria led the way through the snow covered road. Woolly says – They were a fine looking lot and having had a quick chat with a couple of them I think I might have sorted out the delivery for my Aston Martin for Christmas, well they said they would pass the message on to the big man himself. I heard a loud puffing sound coming towards me and having trotted past a large shed could hardly believe my eyes as a replica of the steam ‘Elephant’ Train, obviously not as good a mammoth train none the less it looked very cool and what could be better than a ride along it’s short track. Having offered to steer and sadly been turned away I sat back and watched as the engine started to move with bits going up and down and steam pouring from it’s funnel, wonderful and having seem the state of the driver by our return trip I’m pretty sure that Jo wouldn’t have been impressed with the coal black colour I might have become.
A short walk brought into the town, beautifully restored with tiny details of the work put in from the metal advertising boards to the street lighting from the 1900’s. Woolly says – having taken in the delights of the bakery and the sweet shops we paused for a snack which is always welcome. Pete and Maria travel nearly as much as me and we passed a lovely hour discussing our next countries and what we had enjoyed in places that we have already been through. With the light starting to decline we made our way over to the rather more affluent houses, the teachers house was quite grand but the dentists was warm , cosy and almost opulent in comparison to the miners cottages. Upstairs the dentists work area was displayed with a most helpful young lady who told us about the types of anaesthetic that would have been used to remove rotting molars, none of which sounded great as quantiles hadn’t really been considered so the chances of dying from having a tooth removed was pretty high. Patting my tusks and promising them that no dentist would ever touch them, we thanked her for her information and I led the way outside once more. Our last stop of the day would be to the working farm and a chance to see what animals they had.
Making the most of the different forms of transport on offer we elected to go by bus which was an added treat with it’s wooden seats and spiral staircase so unlike the public transport of today it had personality.
Woolly says – The 1940’s farm was lovely and having passed the time of day with the horses, geese and chickens, Maria led the way towards the large pigs. The huge animals grunted away, Pete seemed to be wondering how many sausages might be forthcoming form any one of them! The farmhouse was snug and warm with a large aga set into the wall and room to feed all the land girls and prisoners of war who would have worked there in it’s heyday, I would have been happy to sit and join them but apparently it was time to go. The tram with it’s delightful ironwork and paintjob trundled us back to the start of the museum as the light was fading way. A wonderful day indeed and as we parted from Pete and Maria we all agreed that we must meet up again and maybe not leave it quite do many years next time. I’ll be away now pet, “Gannin yem”.
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