Collections & Archives

Beamish is a world famous open air museum telling the story of the people of North East England. The story of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian life is told by our costumed staff and volunteers in a unique living and working museum. Most of the houses, shops and other buildings have been dismantled, brought to Beamish and rebuilt here. 

Across the Ages

Beamish represents three main periods of the region's history.

• The Georgian Period
• The Victorian Period
• The Edwardian Period

Our staff work with real collections and demonstrate what life was like in the past. This allows you to experience what life would have been like first hand.   

Recreating and saving the past: 40 years of the museum

Beamish has been recreating the past for four decades and has preserved the region's heritage by collecting and reconstructing buildings. Click here to read more.

Resource collections and the window into your past.

Beamish collects your stories and your past in photographs, recordings and objects, and uses such collections to create the things you see on site, as well as allowing you to look back and share your past with us and the region. We are building a People's Collection which is an online space for communities to share and build a picture of the region's past.

• The People's Collection  
• Photographic Archive
• Object Collections
• Audio collections