UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions

In a mock-up of a 1913 classroom, Mike and Bob acted like misbehaving school kids and got told off by a 1913 teacher!  The school was part of the 1913 colliery village at Beamish, complete with realistic actors playing the part.

This lady is the character in an early 20th century kitchen at Beamish Open Air Museum, chatting to all the visitors and making everyone feel like they'd just walked into a time warp.  Not that we remember, of course... well, except Mike!
 

Mike tries to show how they dried their clothes in the olden days, but the mangle won in the end.  It's enough to turn your hair white!  The excellent Beamish Open Air Museum website is is well worth a look, see our UK tourist links page.

Here we have one of the old trams that takes visitors around the various areas at Beamish Museum.  There are also old buses running too.  As you can see, the weather wasn't any better in County Durham than in Scotland the previous day.
 

This is the award-winning recreation of a typical northern market town street, complete with 1913 shops, bank, offices, doctors, garage, dentist, pub, etc.  We had lunch in the 1913 café, but they charged 2001 prices (though it was very reasonable).

Here's the 1913 sweet shop at Beamish, with jars of sweeties behind the assistants in period costume, old scales and till to the right foreground.  You could view them making the sweets and sample them too in the small shop factory adjoining.
 

A shot of the 1913 northern town at Beamish from the other direction, the old car is heading for the 1913 railway station.  This is perhaps an early version of Mike's car - no air conditioning or sports/economy switch though!

The garage man here explained the workings of the 1913 garage at Beamish.  This place was interesting, with lots of old motor signs, vehicle bits and so on.  Notice the van in the back loaded up with stuff.  Now, where's the gift shop?
 

This statue is called 'The Angle of the North' and it's situated just off the A1(M) highway.  It's supposed to signify your arrival in the far north of England.  Notice the people at its base, that gives an idea of the size.

The Gateshead hotel we stayed in was very comfortable.  Here's a shot of us enjoying a drink in the bar before going in to dinner while Mike embarrassed everyone by running around videoing everything.  Video clips on our videos page.