2011 Spring Meeting – Beamish
The open-air museum at Beamish was the venue of this year’s Spring Meeting and a very good choice it turned out to be. Godfrey had done his usual fine job in organising a varied and interesting programme for us. As we arrived at the entrance we were met by one of the Museum’s staff and then we transferred by tram to the town. Our party had time for coffee and then we had a talk in a reserved room above the Bank. Lindsay Curry is an assistant keeper of social history at the site and her illustrated talk was excellent. She had prepared a host of pictures showing several facets of life in the 19th and early 20th centuries, all relating to the buildings that the museum has on its site. These covered the Georgian era Pockerley Hall (1820s), the Victorian Home Farm (1870s) and the Edwardian Town and Pit Village (1911). We concentrated on the town and pit village, learning the stories of several of the buildings on site that in many cases included photos of them in their original settings. Inevitably we spoke about the Sun Inn that had an Alderson landlord when it was at 2 High Bondgate, Bishop Auckland. We also heard that it provided the last meal for Mary Ann COTTON (a serial killer of all of her husbands) before her execution in 1873 while she was in Bishop Auckland police station next door.
The Co-op was another building we saw in a photo of Annfield, where it had five departments in separate “bays”. Now it has just three, for haberdashery, grocery and hardware. I had never appreciated the Co-op dividend was 20% of purchases so it is no wonder the Co-op Divvy number was so important to customers. Because most of their larger stores had several departments it would be fair to call them the first supermarkets – the Tesco of their day.
Moving on to the pit cottages we saw a photo of a terrace of 27 of them at Hetton-le-Hole. They had been built in 1860 – 1865 and were donated to the museum by the National Coal Board when the mine there closed. Six of the cottages were carefully demolished before being reassembled, stone by stone, on site and we had quite a discussion about housing conditions and then the derivation of the word “netty”, the outside toilet. The miners at Beamish were entitled to free coal, one ton every fortnight in winter and every three weeks in summer. The fires were kept going all the time, especially if a household had family members working different shifts in the pit. Often, if that were the case, the mother of the house would sleep in her chair by the fire so as to be on hand whenever a man came home wanting a meal and hot water for a bath.
In their spare time the miners kept busy by gardening, keeping pigeons and also by making small artefacts for use and ornamentation in the house. Lindsay had several examples to show us and also had a clip rug and a proddy mat, usually made by the womenfolk, that we passed round. Traditionally families kept a pig too, that was slaughtered in the autumn for extra food. Domestic life was discussed in detail, particularly the different types of range used for cooking, and there were photos of a communal bread oven as well as lots of photos of washing day, of cooking and of rooms showing furniture and ornaments.
Finally we touched on the school, the chapel, outside activities and then traditional superstitions and beliefs. One superstition among the miners was that to wash you back weakened you but we heard, later in the day at the pit, that the real reason was probably that the miners’ backs were so cut and scratched it was too painful to scrub them clean.
We had time after the talk for a walk round the town seeing many of the things we discussed. The friendly atmosphere seemed to infect everyone and it was amusing to hear strangers talking to our group and vice versa saying “Ooh, I remember those, we used to ….” Inevitably we ran out of time and before long we re-assembled in the Bank for lunch.
The museum provided us with an excellent buffet before we all made our way to the pit village for the second part of our day’s activities. In the past the mine at Beamish claimed two Alderson lives but sadly we weren’t able to add to our knowledge of their accidents. We did however have an interesting demonstration of the Davy safety lamp before we went in groups into the mine. With just 4ft 6 inches clearance many of us had to bend uncomfortably but our guide was good and we saw at first hand the dreadful conditions under which many of the miners worked. Our guide had himself once worked a seam only 13 inches thick. I think I would have great difficulty in crawling along a 13-inch tunnel let alone spend eight hours working in it. As well as the mine itself there were more buildings to see and these included the mine cottages we had earlier heard about. It was fascinating to see in real life some of the morning’s illustrations, especially the different ranges and the immaculate front rooms. I also briefly popped into the school and the chapel but again soon ran out of time. Making our way back to the entrance we managed to get a cup of tea and a quick look round the gift shop before closing time at 5.00.
Most of us met again in Stables Restaurant at Beamish Hall Hotel for our evening meal where we had a chance to reflect on the day’s events and enjoy a first class dinner.
Next morning saw us meeting again at Tanfield Railway, just a mile or two away. This is the oldest railway in the world still in operation and it also has the world’s oldest railway bridge. David Holroyd was our guide and he took us round the enormous collection of locomotives, 62 in all, and over 170 other items of rolling stock. Their collection specifically concentrates on preserving the North East’s railway heritage and judging by the material on hand the volunteers have a lifetime’s task ahead of them to restore and rebuild the various locos, coaches and waggons. It was apparent that we were all genuinely interested as the questions flew thick and fast. David’s knowledge was up to the task and he was a wonderful source of explanations and stories, telling us something about each of the pieces we passed and giving us an insight into the restorers’ tasks.
Presently we transferred by car to the Causey Arch and Tanfield Waggonway site. Again David gave the explanation of how, in 1725, a wooden waggonway was built for the transportation of coal from local pits to Newcastle and the Tyne valley, originally for onward shipping to London. Horses that pulled the waggons with ropes powered the waggonway. The waggons were made of wood, as was the track they ran on, and we saw a fine replica waggon at the site. There also were a number of excellent information boards for more details. The stone bridge – Causey Arch – was probably the first major civil engineering feat of Britain’s Industrial Revolution.
One by one members of our party had to leave for their homeward journeys but
there were still twelve of us who went to the South Causey pub for lunch.
However, by two o’clock we had all dispersed with cries of “See you at Muker in
September” ringing forth. R. A. S.