#Beamish

2025-12-05
Ancient motor workshop
Beamish museum, England, UK
#beamish #motor #history #museum #england #uk #photography
John Leachjohnl
2025-09-13

We visited Beamish museum today and in the school house there was a player piano! And I asked if it worked and it did and I got to run it! I've actually never operated a working one. Inspired me to get a move on repairing mine.

The "school teacher" demonstrating it to me complained they only have one working piece of music for it so I might donate them a couple of mine.

There was much more cool stuff at Beamish but I'll toot about that later.

An old dark wooden upright player piano. There is a music pattern on the roll. The key cover is closed.The insides of a player piano. The focus is on the main air powered motor which consists of several small bellows and wooden armatures alongside a metal crank shaft.
Jack and Mary's Photo Albumjack_mary@pixey.org
2025-08-23
Continuing Jack & Mary's time in northern England, this week in 1950 they photographed these "sloping houses". The caption reads "21 August 1950. Sloping houses, Stanley, Co Durham" - thanks to which I've located where they were.

The photo shows houses on a sharp road bend, by a bus stop, on a hill, with railway behind and distant hills. Stanley sits near Newcastle and Sunderland with the Beamish Living Museum nearby. This was proper coal mining territory with collieries for miles. The area had many railway lines serving them, but only the former Annfield Plain branch of the North Eastern Railway, now a cycleway, is really noticeable on maps today.

Tracing this line, I spotted a candidate location just northwest of Stanley - a very sharp left bend with the railway behind. Modern Street View shows a familiar scene, though these houses are gone and trees hide the railway. Moving down confirms it's on quite a hill, and a 2009 view shows the large hill in the background.

The National Library of Scotland's 1954 Ordnance Survey map shows this road existed then with a building at the bend. OpenStreetMap confirms there's a bus stop here. I'm 99.9% sure this is the right place.

I don't know why the houses were demolished - maybe they were sinking into coal mines below, maybe the uncomfortable angle, maybe just outdated - but I'm glad this photo preserved them.

#JackAndMaryArchive #Stanley #CountyDurham #Beamish #OrdnanceSurvey #maps
1954 map reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. 2009 image © Google. OSM image courtesy OpenStreetMap.
The main feature of this photo is of what looks like the end of a row of cottages that are sloping down to the left. In the foreground is a road that curves to the left and appears to be going down a hill, with a concrete and metal railing fence on the left. In the near foreground is a telegraph pole and lamp post, with the words "Bus Stop" in large letters running down the latter. Behind the cottages is a railway line, and beyond that, a hill.1954 map image showing Sunny Terrace, the sharp bend in the road with a railway line behind it. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.2009 Google Street View image of Sunny Terrace, Stanley, County Durham. Modern houses stand on the bend of the road, trees obscure the railway line (now cycle path), but a hill is visible in the distance.An OpenStreetMap image of Sunny Terrace showing the Consett & Sunderland Railway Path behind what's now know as Osborne Villas. A bus stop icon is also seen on Sunny Terrace in the approximate location of the one seen in the 1950 photo.
2025-06-27

‘Joyous, immersive’ #Beamish wins the UK's Art Fund museum of the year award.

Judges praise County Durham attraction’s ‘remarkable attention to detail’ in bringing history to life

theguardian.com/culture/2025/j #museums #globalmuseum

‘Joyous, immersive’ Beamish wins the UK's Art Fund museum of the year award

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