Collection: Beamish, The Living Museum of The North

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Cornucopia)

  Agriculture

  The agriculture and rural life collection comprises craft tools, buildings and objects of processes, transport and paintings, photographs and record books. Both farmsteads are listed buildings and house the main collections and displays. Beamish valley with 2500 acres and 150 acres of woodland shows how the land was worked in the 2 periods- 1825 and 1913. There are 10 acres of woodland coppice and 20 acres of ridge and furrow. The land below Pockerley Manor is being restored to a Georgian landscape of stone walling, ponds, hedges, oak riven fencing and ridge and furrow ploughing. Pockerley Mill will be restored as a working corn mill and the water races, mills and ponds are also being restored. The collections are based on farm sale and craft inventories and are represented by buildings and object collections, especially craft tools for rural crafts of joinery, blacksmithing, farriery, cooperage, wheelwrighting, milling etc. The agricultural collections concentrate on water, wind, horse and steam power before the tractor, but crop and animal husbandry are important with a herd of Durham shorthorn cattle, a flock of Teeswater sheep, Clyesdale horses, Cleveland Bay horses and Dales ponies. There are also paintings, photographs, engravings and stud and flock books.

  Art and Design

  The collection ranges from 18th to 20th century concentrating on quilts, coverlets, rag mats, lodge banners, paintings, furniture, brassware, pottery and glassware, corn dollies and walking sticks. Beamish’s collection of north country quilts is internationally known. Some 350 examples cover the period from c. 1820 up to the 1950s and represent whole cloth, strippy and patchwork and applique examples. There are 300 rag mats; 100 lodge banners relate to mineworkers, enginemen, carpenters and joiners, agricultural workers and friendly societies, many by George Tutill of London. The animal painting collection includes Durham Shorthorn cattle by George Garrard, Thomas Weaver and Thomas Bewick and nave work of horses and pigs and of pit scenes, portraits and northern life. The vernacular furniture collection is extensive, partly catalogued by Dr Bill Cotton. There are also 600 locally carved knitting sheaths from 1770 to the 1900s. Regional pottery and glassware are represented by Moore’s ware and local slipware (Pockerley mill ground flint for the Southwick Pottery in Sunderland). Glassware is represented by examples from Gateshead and Sunderland. There are also collections of corn dollies and carved walking sticks. Collection referred to in ‘North Country folk art’ by Peter Brears; ‘English Nave Art’ by James Ayres; ‘North country quilts and coverlets’ by Rosemary E Allen.

  Archives

  The Resource Collection includes photographs, film, books, trade catalogues, posters and oral history tapes. The Photographic Archive houses over 300,000 photographic images dating from the 1860s to the present on a computerised laser disc system. The images include black and white prints, colour prints, lantern slied, glass plate and other negatives and transparencies. The major holdings are Durham Advertiser, Agricultural Gazette, Farmers’ Guardian and Huwood’s Mining Machinery Company collections, BBC stills and other major modern collections. The photo database also includes many images of items in the collections, illustrations and other material. There are 100 films of 8 to 16mm of events and activities in the North East; most are on video and will be digitised. The book collection is 64,000 of late 18th, 19th and 20th century date, many antiquarian in nature. The 5,000 in number, nationally important collection of trade catalogues of suppliers and manufacturers, cover everything from kitchen ranges, decorative castings, banners, agricultural implements and tools, sports and pastimes to industrial machinery. The earliest catalogue dates back to c.1825 though the majority of the catalogues date between 1860 and 2003. The poster collection includes 19th and 20th century printed posters, leaflets, ephemera, topographical material, maps and an important collection of NER and LNER posters. The oral history collection has 800 recordings.

  Transport

  The collections include wheeled vehicles and horse drawn, steam driven, colliery and early railways, garage and motor industry, electric tramways, railway manufacture and the North Eastern Railway. Transport is an important aspect of all the period areas and the collection includes a range of cycles, tricycles, velocipedes and boneshakers of 1860s, high bicycles of the 1880s and safety bicycles. Especially interseting is an Excelsior tricycle of 1882, Humber quadricycle of 1899, and delivery bikes for vendors, ice cream and a policeman; Motorcycles include 2 by Dene of Haymarket, Newcastle of 1912 and 1920, a 1916 Royal Enfield, a 1919 Triumph and a 1922 Matchless and sidecar. The collection covers the period 1860 -1960. There are 100 horse drawn vehicles including farm carts, Dales carts, harvest carts, long carts and rulleys or rolleys with regional variations; livestock ‘beasts’ carts, timber wagons, milk floats, butcher’s carts, Rington’s Tea van, ice cream cart, furniture removal van, brewery vehicles, hearses, Brougham coach, spider phaeton, gig, traps, colliery ambulance and horse bus. The internal combustion collection has vehicles from 1899 – 1940 including a Northern General SOS ‘QL’ bus of 1928 from Consett, a Dodge bus of 1931 from Rookhope, Weardale, a 1928 Austin hearse and a 1913 Daimler bus which carries visitors around the site; Daimler flat bed lorry of 1914, a Manchester built Model T Ford of 1914, a 1906 Armstrong Whitworth car and a Renault AX of 1913. Replica cars include a 1912 Armstrong Whitworth limosine, Daimler bus and a double decker J2503 used by Northern General Transport Co and a SHEW car of 1906 manufactured by the Seaham Harbour Engineering Works. Steam is represented by a 15 ton Aveling Porter of 1894 and a rare Mann tractor of 1928. The garage in the town with its showroom and workshop has early advertising, lamps, accessories, spare parts , handmade tyres, workshop machinery and a 1910 Harvey Frost vulcaniser. Early railways are represented by rail and sleeper blocks, a signal of 1840, the coal and lime drops of 1834 from Boldon, the Warden Law haulage engine of 1836, the Hetton loco of 1851, the ‘Steam elephant’ oil painting, building accounts and replica and a Throckley dandy cart. Also a replica ‘Locomotion’, 2 c.1840 chaldron waggons, 2 Tyneside chaldron waggons from the Wallsend engraving of 1815, 2 early passenger carriages one of ‘tub’ or ‘long’ type and one to a design of 1831 by Kitching of Darlington and the Throckley dandy cart. Colliery railways collection has a Hawthorn Leslie loco of 1914 from the Lambton system, a rare Robert Stephenson loco of 1891 from the Beamish waggonway and a Harton Colliery electric by Siemens of 1908, ‘Lewin’ of 1877, ‘Wellington’ of 1873 and the ‘Coffee Pot’ of 1871. The important NER material is the largest held anywhere and has on site the Rowley Station, Alnwick Gooods shed, Boldon Coal and Lime drops, Carr House Signal Box, Glanton Weighcabin, and footbridges from Dunston and Howden-le-Wear, a 1889 0-6-0 Class ‘C’ loco built in Gateshead, 2 carriages with the 1904 Clerestory restored, a ‘birdcage’ brake van and a variety of lamps, signs, signalling equipment and other items. The electric trams are fundamental to the visitors to the site and the fully restored fleet has Blackpool Corporation No 31 of 1901, Newcastle Corporation No 114 of 1901, Sheffield Corporation No 264 of 1907, Gateshead & District No 10 of 1925 and STCP Oporto No 196 of 1935, Sunderland No 16 of 1900, Newcastle’s No 501 trolleybus of 1948 and Keighley No 12 of 1924. The railway collection is referred to in ‘Early railways’ by Andy Guy and Tim Rees.

  Social History

  The collections cover the period from 1600 to present and make up about 50% of the museum holdings. They incorporate areas that are usually considered under Fine and Decorative art. The collections include domestic items, over the whole range of fixtures and fittings, utensils, heating, lighting, sanitation, laundry, food, drink, tobacco, hobbies, entertainment, sports and toys. Much is displayed in the Ravensworth Terrace town houses, the pit cottages and the Co-op store. Personal items include a large costume collection focussing on occupational, working and non fashion items, accessories and associated material. Town crafts, trades and professions are represented by buildings, furnishings and fittings and include parts of Handyside’s arcade from Newcastle. There are several complete shops and contents waiting to be fitted up in the town including a chemists, doctors surgery and bakers. Customs and traditions include the oral history tapes and an unpublished collection of manuscript folk music and song. Ethnic and other cultures are being developed. The education collection includes school furniture, teaching apparatus, maps, wall charts, object lessons, books and ephemera; most is housed in the Board school from East Stanley. Religion has the rebuilt Wesleyan Methodist chapel and a C of E church St Helen’s , a stone building of the 1820s, from Eston in Cleveland awaits rebuilding; there are small collections relating to primitive methodists and Roman Catholics. The social and political movements collection includes a dismantled Masonic temple from Park Terrace, Sunderland and other material relates to friendly societies, Trades Unions and the early Labour movement. Amenities, entertainment and sport have the Victorian cast iron bandstand in the town and objects for a municipal museum, a town library fittings, contents of an early cinema and models. Health and welfare includes medical items and ephemera. Emergency services have an 1890s horse drawn steam fire engine by Shand Mason, other fire engines and equipment, a horse drawn colliery ambulance and rescue equipment. The law enforcement collection has truncheons, arm and leg manacles, handcuffs, uniforms, and items from a police station. Parts of a magistrates court from South Shields are in store and a collection of standard weights and measures. Warfare and defence is largely civilian relating to World War I and II; a Krupp gun stands in the park. There is a Simplex armoured loco of 1916. There is a small collection of 16 mounted animal specimens and 3 spirit specimens that are considered to be social history as they are used for display in the various period settings.

  Industry

  The industrial collection covers coal mining, lead mining quarrying, iron and steel industries, shipbuilding, printing, building construction, water, gas, and a number of other industries. The coal mining collection covers the period 1850 -1930and relates to the Great Northern coalfield and has about 10,000 objects. The super-large and large collection includes 10 egg-end boilers and a Lancashire boiler; a sinking winch of 1864 from Silksworth Colliery; a rotary converter; power generators; surface compressors; shaft bottom pump bodies of 1842 form Murton Colliery; 2 horse gins; electric and pneumatic haulers; tipplers; Evans and Cameron pumps; a Waddle fan and engine; 4 colliery locos including ‘Hetton’ and 40 chaldron and other coal waggons; Simon Carves coke ovens of 1882 and associated tools. Medium size objects includes a complete lamp cabin, a dandy cart, coal tubs, cutters and workshop equipment; 52 banners are part of the Lodge banner collection; Coal movement collection has the Warden Law rope haulage engine of 1836 by Murrays of Chester-le Street, a coal drop of 1850 from Seaham Harbour and a crane engine by Hawks of 1830 designed by Chapman. The smallest objects are the majority and represent about 20% of the total objects in the museum collections. They include lamps, hand tools, pony harness, rescue equipment, patterns from Brancepeth Colliery, electric signalling equipment, slow banking gear, shot firing material and surveyors equipment. Coal mining images are about 22% of the total at about 12,000. There are 5 films from 1950 -1970; 2000 archive items relate to coal mining, mainly ephemera between 1840 -1994. Published material is trade catalogues, technical books and the library from the Brancepeth Colliery Institute. There are 200 oral history tapes or 31% of the total and about 200 paintings. The lead mining collection consists of hand tools, ore tubs, Patterson pans and an underground soil-box from Nenthead introduced after a cholera outbreak. Items no longer collected since Allenheads and Nenthead museums became active. Some items on loan to these museums. Quarrying has large and small objects and the collection is wide but not comprehensive. It includes the 100 ton Rushton-Bucyrus steam navvy of 1931, the largest survivor in the world, Head Wrightson vertical boiler ‘coffee pot’ loco of 1871, a rare steam drilling rig by J and R Thompson of Dunfermline and a steam scotch derrick from Doddington Quarry, Northumberland; a 12 ton millstone turning machine and extensive photographs in the photo archive. Iron and steel production and working the metal includes 19th century file cutter hammers, 70 ton steam hammer by Glen and Ross of Glasgow built in 1883 for the Darlington Forge and Engineering Co; an 1887 Black Hawthorn rail mounted billet crane and plans and patterns from the works. Extensive collections of blacksmithing and related trades; a cupola from Browns Foundry, moulding and pouring tools, patterns dating back to 1850 and rolling mills from Dunston, parts of a water powered hammer forge and a range of machine tools. Ship building is only represented by the archive and library collections as all maritime material has been passed to Tyne and Wear Museums. The printing collections are significant and include several presses viz: a Stanhope No 67 of c1805; a Columbian No 655 of 1837 and No 907 of 1840 by Clymer and Dixon; Star copper plate press by D and J Greig of Edinburgh; An Albion by Wood and Co of London and a rare platen press by Slight and Lillie of Edinburgh of the late 1820s. Later presses of 1870 -1920 include Arab platens, stone litho presses, Wharfedale flat bed and typecasting linotype machines. Also gold blocking presses, book binding equipment, ruling machines, hand tools, type and guillotines. The art of the illustrator and engraver is represented by Willian Davison of Alnwick’s engravings of cattle, printed ephemera and posters from 1820 -1900. Building construction is an important part of the collections and research. Many buildings are noted under Display overview as they have been rebuilt or renovated in situ, but others remain in store including an oak chimney piece form the Beehive Inn, Newcastle; a 1900s glazed ceramic front from the old Colliery Inn at Pelton; cast iron Fleetwood trusses of 1830 and a cast iron gas bridge from Dunston. The water industry has early wooden pipes form Newcastle and a variety of well-head pumps, a large stone fountain of 1878 from Consett; Stanhope sanitary district plaque and fountain; Shotley Bridge fountain and a variety of hydrant heads for public use; a McFarlanes’ cast iron gents urinal from Willington Quay and a gas powered sewage pump from Middlesbrough. Material from Milnthorpe gasworks in Cumbria and a gasometer from Appleby c.1900 are supplemented by smaller items including a gasometer by Braddoch of Oldham and early gasmeters. Streetlighting is gas powered in the town and uses standards and lamps from Newcastle. Objects from other industries include equipment from flour milling, bakery, confectionery, the Rowntrees Collection of sweet making, soda-water production, brick making, timber, paint, and rope making. Significant loans have been made to other museums in the region including Tyne and Wear, Killhope, Bowes Railway, Tanfield Railway and Hartlepool. Collections referred to in ‘Mining the Beamish Collection’ by Adrian Doyle.

  Source: Cornucopia

  Date: Not known, but before 2015

  Licence: CC BY-NC