Beamish is a world famous open air museum. Known as The Living Museum of the North it vividly recreates life in North East England in the early 1800s and 1900s with a huge range of attractions for everyone to enjoy. For visitors to Beamish cottages make an ideal base from which to visit the museum as well as exploring the surrounding area. The Museum stands in 300 acres of beautiful County Durham countryside and tickets allow an unlimited number of visits, allowing you to go back more than once during your stay.

Each area of the Museum tells the story of Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian living. You can see how life in North East England changed over 100 years, from a Georgian agricultural lifestyle to the Industrial Revolution. You won't find objects displayed in glass cases at Beamish, you'll see them in their original context. You can stroll around the shops and houses of the Edwardian town, take a trip down a real drift mine in the Pit Village, and visit the miners' cottages, village school as well as the Georgian manor house. With guides in authentic period costume and trams serving different parts of the site it is careful enough to avoid a romanticised view of the past and may well give an insight to some of the towns, villages and landscapes you visit during the rest of your holiday. Most of the houses, shops and other buildings you see here have been brought to Beamish, rebuilt and furnished as they once were. Some, such as Home Farm, Pockerley Old Hall and the drift mine were already in-situ.

Beamish is a living, working museum, where there are always new things to see and experience. Throughout the year there are a whole host of events for everyone to enjoy. The museum has received a number of prestigious awards since it opened its present site to visitors in 1972 and has been influential in the design of 'living museums' which have followed.

So why not take a look at my selection of Beamish cottages, all within just a few miles of the Museum, and see what catches your eye?

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For enquiries, availability or to book over the phone please call: 0844 561 8329
Opening Hours: Mon, Tues 9am-7pm, Wed-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm