More 1900's town at Beamish.

Shall we jump back on the tram for a further look at the 1900's town? Catch up with the previous post    about the town here.

Get settled down at the table

Here we have the pub, The Sun Inn, on the left, ready for you to pop in for a cosy pint. The square gateway leads to the stables and coach yard. In the green fronted building the stationers is downstairs and the printers, where you can watch type setting in action, is located above.

The stationers window

Horses being shod in the stable yard.

Inside the printers

Inside the stationers.

On the side wall of the printers.

Advertising sign in the form of a thermometer.

On this side of the road we can also visit the sweet shop so I think maybe we should pop in. If we are lucky we will get to see sweets being made, and maybe even get a taster.

The window display is tempting.

Making traditional local sweets

As we cross the road we go past the Beamish Motor and Cycle Works and have a little daydream about a fabulous new car. Then we come to a little parade of shops run by the Co-operative Society.

The window displays are very exciting: groceries, hardware, kitchenware, china, haberdashery, furs, shirts and bonnets. Pretty much everything that you could need. I think we should take a look inside at the grocery, drapery and hardware departments.

A large choice of groceries

The ornate till

Fabric in the haberdashery

Cotton, darning wool, crochet and knitting wool.

A coat in the drapers

Lino in the hardware shop

I think we better leave the Co-op Stores in case we spend all our money. We could head to Herron's Bakery for a little snack.

Beautiful stained glass windows.

Warm and welcoming in the bakery with marvellous smells.

The bakers at work

Now we have seen most of the shops in the town. There is also the bank and the masonic hall, then the solicitors, dentist and music teachers all located in Ravensworth Terrace. I think we will save these for another time.

Newest additions to the 1900's town at Beamish

It has been a bit of a while since I last wrote; I don't know what happened to the last couple of months! Apologies. I have an awful lot to catch up on so I thought I would make a start with a recent visit to one of my favourite places - Beamish. You can read more about a previous Beamish visit here.

Beamish is an open air living history museum in the North of England. The site is divided into a few main areas: the 1900's town, the 1940's farm, the 1900's pit village and colliery and the 1820's farm and manor house. Each one gives you a flavour of what life would have been like at the time in those places. Transport between the areas is on vintage trams and buses and you can spend quite a happy time just travelling around the site on these.

Picture heavy post coming up!

One of the trams

Most of the buildings at Beamish have been collected from other towns and villages over the years and have been rebuilt here to save them from demolition or dereliction. They are literally moved stone by numbered stone and rebuilt as they were. The interiors may come from those buildings or may be an amalgamation of period finds from other places.

As they acquire buildings and funding the site is added to. A 1950's town is planned which is an addition that I am really excited about.

Part of the main street in the 1900's town

The other side of the street

The bank

I love going to Beamish and this visit was planned so that we could visit the two newest businesses in the 1900's town, W Smith's chemist and JR and D Edis photographers.

The chemist's shop was fascinating, I spent quite some time just looking at all the packaging of the various lotions and potions. The chemist told us that at the time the drug industry was pretty unregulated so there could be all sorts in the remedies including lead, cocaine and arsenic. Obviously many of the remedies were next to useless and some were downright harmful.

 

The chemist's interior was dominated by rows and rows of labelled drawers, I would love a set of them for my house. Imagine how many treasures you could store in those! If you happened to watch the TV series Dark Angel recently then you will have seen the chemist as several scenes were filmed at Beamish.

It is worth getting chatting with the members of staff as they are dressed up in character and have so much knowledge about the period and the businesses that they work in. I think you get a much more immersive experience if you have these conversations and they really don't mind how random your questions are!

The chemist also sold spectacles, here is one of the displays.

Now to the photographers.

Whilst we were visiting the town was showing the experiences of the First World War and the photographers was busy taking portraits of soldiers in their uniform, to leave with their families, and also portraits of families for the soldiers to take with them.

Wedding photos were popular too of course!

This is the interior of the photographer's studio were the portraits are taken and various backdrops, props and costumes could be utilised.

The photographer's dark room was next to the studio and was the place were all the chemicals needed to develop the photographic plates were stored and used. You can see photographs hanging up to dry on the back wall.

On the wall outside the two shops were lots of advertising signs and information posters.

More from Beamish coming soon. Have you been? Would you like to visit?

Probably the best fish and chips in the world

I have just returned from a few days break in Northumberland; a place I have wanted to visit for a long time and I was not disappointed. We had a marvellous time exploring castles and the coast, some of which will be coming up on the blog over the next week or so.

On the way to and from home we stopped at Beamish - The Living Museum of the North. I have been so eager to visit Beamish and I absolutely loved it! I want to return already! It is an open air museum which tells the life of people in the North East in the 1820's, 1900's and 1940's. For example, there is a 1940's farm - all the farm buildings, equipment, cottages and a farm house that you can wander around and learn about life at the time from people dressed in period costume, carrying out day to day tasks.

I have a couple of Beamish posts coming up but today I just want to focus on one important thing - fish and chips.

Beamish has a 1900's pit village showing what life was like in a coal mining community at that time. In the midst of the village is Davy's Fried Fish Shop. Fish and chips were a popular meal at the time, by 1914 there were 452 such shops in the North East. This one is named after the last coal fired chip shop on Tyneside which closed in 2007.

This photo shows one of the three coal fired ranges that were used to cook the fish and chips.

This shows the side of the room opposite the range. Here the potatoes would have been prepared and turned into chips. Potatoes were rumbled (shaken about and rubbed), by hand or machine to remove the skins. Chips were first cut by hand but later mechanically, powered by a gas engine.

We have followed the mouth watering scent of fish and chips into the adjacent room and are leaning on the counter, waiting for the new batch of chips which have just gone in, to cook. The room is tiled showing sea scenes and the range has seagulls and a yacht decorating it. In the middle of the range you can just see the glow from the coal fire.

Our order has been taken and we watch the preparations whilst we wait. The batter being whisked, fish being dipped in batter, bowls of raw chips waiting to be cooked, newspaper being folded into cones.

It was most definitely worth the wait! Our fish and chips come wrapped in paper with liberal sprinkles of salt and vinegar. As this is the 1900's the menu is very simple indeed, no mushy peas, no ketchup, no battered sausage, no pies. Just good old fish and chips.

They are cooked in beef dripping, which is prepared by saving the meat juices from your Sunday roast, leaving them in a pot or tin too cool. Other meat juices can be added and you end up with a white layer of lard and a brown jelly layer underneath. I understand that it sounds gross and fatty and a heart attack waiting to happen but it really is delicious.

Dripping reminds me of my maternal grandparents. Grandma always made dripping and had a tin of it in the fridge without fail. Grandad was most often in charge of sorting out breakfast and he always made us dripping on toast. Perfectly toasted bread cut fresh from the loaf on the yellow formica covered board, spread with a layer of dripping that melted on contact with the hot toast. Grandad always got the perfect balance of white and brown and sprinkled it with salt from the brown Bakelite salt cellar. He made pieces and pieces and pieces, carefully cut in half, piled up on my Grandma's floral china and my sister, cousins and I used to wolf it down. Grandad stood on duty by the grill until we were full up. Those are very happy memories, indeed my cousin and I spoke fondly of dripping on toast last time we met up.

I wish you could smell these fish and chips. You should be wishing that you could taste them! They were perfect! Eaten out of the paper, with our fingers, sitting outside on a wooden bench in the autumn sunshine, on our second wedding anniversary, thinking of my grandparents. Happy, content and full.