Friday 7 September 2012

Beamish Things

I just posted a bit about Beamish on my other blog, which is about Lewis Carroll and "Alice in Wonderland." It's quite an old blog, but I always add anything "Carrollian" that I notice.

Anyway, if you know Carroll's "Jabberwocky" you'll know about the "beamish boy." (Here's the poem.) Carroll never explained what a "beamish boy" was but he lived quite near Beamish, Co. Durham, and so I'm going to write a bit in this post about Beamish Living History museum.

Here's the main street of the museum's "1913 town".

To me, parts of Beamish resembled bits of modern Britain today. Okay, most places don't have cobblestones, or trams, and I suppose you'd find chicken takeaways and mini cab firms behind some of those old windows - yet I'm sure I know places like this - do you?

My friend once lent me her cottage in the wilds of Yorkshire. She kept it deliberately old fashioned. It really was like stepping back in time, though she did have electric blankets. It was a headache to build up the fire and keep the flagstones swept, but it was cosy of a winter night, and quite like this Beamish interior (below).


The lady is one of the volunteers who helps to keep the museum going. She was happy to explain about her "life" in 1913 to all the visitors.

You could explore inside many of the old buildings. Many visitors loved the period interiors, not as historic pieces but as the kind of place they might like to live themselves. This one below was very popular, judging by the admiring comments ...

I prefer like this cosy music room, below, with its red wallpaper and drapes. It has a settled and welcoming air. Though I am sure the potted aspidistra wouldn't have been stuck in the middle of the floor but on a little table.


A nice old kitchen dresser - love the wallpaper.


Cute nursery, although I think it would need a nursery maid at hand to tidy it up, there isn't even a child in it and it is still a bit untidy...

My favourite interiors though were in the Georgian farmhouse, late 18th, early 19th century. Georgian fittings and furnishings are elegant, harmonious but not fussy. I always feel sad when I read in house renovation magazines about people who buy old houses and rip out the interiors. Details like the arched and panelled wall cabinet, built to fit, are irreplaceable - and always hand made.

I liked farmhouse kitchen below. They had a couple of volunteers dressed in farmhouse corduroys, sitting around and chatting to add to the atmosphere, and if you look closely you can see the fire burning in the grate. It always had to be on, even in the summer, to provide hot water and do the cooking.


What do you think of these interiors?

53 comments:

  1. Hello Jenny:
    We have never visited Beamish but we know that we should love it. We certainly love all the interiors you show. Indeed, our furniture would just slip right in unnoticed!!!

    WE had not heard about the Lewis Carroll connection. That is so intriguing.

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  2. I love them all but am with you...the music room is quite stunning. The first picture made me think of Harry Potter.

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  3. I love them! It's not so easy to find interiors like this in the States. I love those cobblestoned streets too (those at least are still found on even busy streets in Manhattan :)

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  4. I've been to Beamish. I do love these living museums. How strange that I have posted about one too today.

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  5. I do like the Georgian interiors...unfussy - and so agree what a shame it is when interiors are ripped out of old houses.
    It happened a lot in my area of France in the 1980s....a crying shame!

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  6. Love them! And especially adore the touches like the built-in arched wall cabinet. It is a crying shame to me too when people rip those things out and modernize the whole place. I love the cobblestone streets, too! Wonderful! :)

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  7. Magnificent pictures! What's not to love. As for "Beamish Boy," he could simply be optimistic, beaming with good cheer, or perhaps he is beaming as a result of a few pints of stout.

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  8. They are lovely to look at; I enjoy visiting such museums very much, BUT I'd never want to go back and live in places like that. We lived in a 17th C cottage for six years. It was gorgeous to look at but a pain to cope with.

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  9. This is the kind of museum that I really would enjoy visiting! I've visited many "working" museums here in the states. It's fun to see how places looked and people lived day to day.

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  10. I'm sure I have lived in such places as these in the wilds of Scotland. Where I live now in the showman's wagon has a range dating back to 1860. I think I would miss electricity the most if I went back in time.

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  11. Everything looks charming, warm and cozy. But also very small and crowded. The Victorians and Edwardians liked to surround themselves with so much stuff.

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  12. It's true; lovely to visit, not to inhabit. I spent a charming weekend in a cottage with a charming pump in the charming German silver kitchen sink and a charming wood stove to heat every drop of hot water pumped at the sink...it was a charming weekend, and I was sad only to leave the lovely old woman who lived there, joyfully.

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  13. 10 yearsguggenheim, I would have loved all the clutter and interesting things around the rooms. However, today I am into plain and less things to dust. I do though love to see how other people have lived, what was their comfort, and what were their needs.

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  14. The Georgian ones definitely hold the most appeal for me. The room with the red wall paper and the nursery are too cluttered for my liking; it is nice to look at them, yes, but having to live in it would drive me crazy after a few days :-)
    And I'd definitely miss my computer if I had to live the way they did back in 1913, or longer ago...

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  15. Those are wow...I think of the hard working people of the time...I LOVE the elite workmanship of the place. So unique.

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  16. Another excellent tour! I would love to visit Beamish, it looks a great place.

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  17. Fantastic place. I went once - seems like it was in another life, so much thanks for bringing back some wonderful memories with your equally wonderful images. I think I agree with you about the Georgian farmhouse.

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  18. They are beautiful, but how would i keep the kids and cats from destroying them? Then there's the modern conveniences i would miss if i really went and lived in a place like that.

    Fun to visit, though.

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  19. I like this step back into time. There is a coziness and loveliness within these walls that belies the hard work it must have taken to keep such households running with fireplaces always burning. And that IS an interesting thought about the “Beamish” connection. Even if on a subconscious level, we are influenced by what is seen or heard. :)

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  20. I've never been to Beamish but I know Blist's Hill and the Black Country museum pretty well. I work in Nottingham - it has both cobblestons and trams. Says a lot about the place really :)

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  21. The Georgian farmhouse is my favorite. It reminds me a bit of my Aunt's farmhouse in southern Illinois. It is probably because she had quite a bit of antique furniture.
    Thank you so much for sharing!

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  22. These are fascinating - I'm sure my grandmother would have recognised most of these (humbling thought!)

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  23. I really wish we had more trams still in day-to-day operation. It's one of the things I love in many European cities :)

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  24. Beautiful interior. I love the kitchen dresser.

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  25. What a fascinating place. I love that kitchen. And that beautiful old dresser. Great pictures!

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  26. I always love museums where you can see how people used to live way back when.

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  27. I enjoyed my last visit to Beamish about 25 years ago, and from your pictures, very little has changed, as it should be.

    For some reason the old shops had the greatest fascination, and I certainly would not have wanted to have lived/worked in that part of the 20th century.

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  28. Lovely house! You can see where Lewis Carroll had got his inspiration from...It looks like Beamish is frozen in time, doesn't it?

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  29. Jenny, A wonderful tour you have once again given us. I love what I call living museums. One can really get a sense of what life was like. I adore the sideboard in the next to last picture. Thank you! We had a marvelous time in Ireland. I just ran out of time. Bonnie

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  30. Wow, looks so lovely, I would love to go there!

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  31. I like to SEE them, but I'm not sure i'd like to LIVE IN THEM!Maybe too much stuff in every room. But I'd like to take one furniture here, an other there. And i would miss some today's things.anyway, the museum seems fabulous!

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  32. Love the farmhouse! Sometimes I find the old interiors so claustrophobic and cluttered. Not sure I could stand so many objects in one room!

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  33. I would love to visit Beamish museum sometime, absolutely fascinating.

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  34. I think those interiors are absolutely marvelous. I have always enjoyed older houses; much prefer them to modern designs. Of course, I much prefer such modern conveniences as air conditioning, etc., but insofar as aesthetics are concerned, give me early 20th Century.

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  35. lovely english style, it did not change so much. great post!

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  36. this is so pretty--my daughter would love to live there!

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  37. I'm always a little disappointed when I find the places I loved in my childhood stories were real.

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  38. Thanks for visiting and bring us to your great site. We will never get to visit England, but love to read about it.

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  39. Fascinating! I find the end of the 1800's to early 1900's one of the most interesting time periods. Thanks Jenny!

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  40. I had no idea of this "Beamish" of which you speak, but quite a bit of my place is decorated on this order. :-) It's wonderful, really.

    Pearl

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  41. My favorite is Georgian farmhouse, too, among all your photographs. In Japan, some people renovate very old houses. Installing modern utility without damaging or destroying original materials of high quality, designs and ornaments is incredibly costly. To build a new house is much less expensive. I’d like many antique architectures to be preserved either privately or by the protection of the municipalities.

    I feel nostalgia for the environmentally-friendly trams. The rail of the trams were taken away to leave more space for cars. What a shame, what a loss! Thanks for this post, Jenny.

    Yoko

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  42. I preferred the living room in the first pic, it looks simple and cosy. The music room looks a bit fussy and cluttered to me.

    The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum just outside Belfast (as I expect you know) has a little recreated village from 100 years ago, with all the old houses and shops and what-have-you. It's fascinating to walk round it and see how everything would have looked at that time.

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  43. A thoroughly delightful post - you really do have the knack of making your readers want to visit places. It is years since I went to Beamish, must go again before the year is out.

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  44. You truly stepped back in time. The cobblestone street and brick buildings are charming. The tram reminds me of the streetcars in San Francisco.

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  45. Jenny...
    LOVED your pics.
    A past time, captured forever, Thanks

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  46. Oh frabjous day! I had no idea "Beamish" was a place. Just thought it was a nonsense word evoking a huge smile. I guess that's typical of Carroll's multi-dimensional plays on words and ideas. Anyway, I love these interiors and how they've preserved everything meticulously. I've always liked the idea of keeping things "period". Even when we remodeled our house, we kept the architecture and structure intact -- very modern '60s, which was when it was built. We even kept things like the old slate, conversation pit, fireplaces, lava rock on the bathroom walls, etc. I guess all we really did was make the surface meet 21st century standards (double paned windows, better insulation, hi-tech wiring, ceiling lights etc.). When we were looking for a house years ago, we knew we just wanted something interesting, whether a Victorian fixer-upper, or California modern. But there are real day-to-day issues when it comes to trying to live in a house over 100 years old! We also thought it fit the idea of Silicon Valley to be ultra-modern and forward looking, even though the popular thing here is to copy mediterranean villas!

    I'll go take a look at your Carrollian blog now ...

    - Jenny

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  47. Hello Jenny

    I agree with you and loving Georgian architecture.
    A beautiful museum and no doubt lovingly kept by volunteers.

    Helenxx

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  48. Jenny - your house sounds lovely - I'd say my dream house ... conversation pit , stilts perhaps so it projects from the hillside and lots of horizontal lines. That stuff entirely missed all but the most expensive English houses of the 60s. Our place is Victorian but we have never undone some awful 60s conversion work - dividing rooms in the wrong places etc so the rooms are odd shapes and putting the bathroom in a stupid place. I honestly fear it would fall down if we did anything too violent to it's insides!

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  49. I'm trying to add comments on my phone today but the scroll bar is nowhere to be seen so I am afraid that has to be "it" for comments today! But as ever, I've appreciated every one and thank you very much for them.

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  50. I love each and every one of them, and if I ever get back to England and can explore the countryside, this would be high on my list! What a terrific museum. Loved the trams and storefronts. Loved EVERYTHING about this!

    Thanks for stopping by The Marmelade Gypsy. Loved your comments!

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  51. Wow! That first photo is just timeless - it could belong to any period in British history, couldn't it? It reminds me of... something. Definitely a scene that saw in England before we moved to South Africa in 1982.

    I love the old fixtures and fittings in the museum too. That is my favourite kind of display - seeing what rooms and houses looked like in other periods of history.

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  52. Jenny, I think the interiors here are just cozy and so important to keep what once was alive! I am always fascinated visiting places like these. Such a wonderful place it is, I'd love to be able to visit there myself some day! Perhaps on our next England trip! Someday!

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  53. I love Jabberwocky and CJ and I frequently quote it at each other. As for Beamish when one is in that part of the world it is absolutely a Must See for young and old alike. Whenever I hear of Beamish I always think of 'proggy mats' which a lady there was making when I was last there. The drift mine was also an interesting experience although a far cry from being hundreds of feet underground.

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