Under Construction

Space-themed toys, a dolls’ hospital and comics… Beamish is creating a 1950s toy shop as part of The 1950s Town!

Shelves will be stacked with colourful toys which visitors will be able to buy. The shop will also feature toys from the museum’s collections, and in the dolls’ hospital, visitors will be able to see broken dolls being repaired.

The people of Middlesbrough overwhelmingly voted for the museum to recreate a toy shop in The 1950s Town, and the exhibit will be inspired by a toy shop and newsagents once found in Middlesbrough called Romer Parrish.

The popular Romer Parrish toy shop in Middlesbrough in the 1950s.

The Parrish family owned a department store in Newcastle before Romer Parrish started his own business in Middlesbrough, first as a mobile lending library and then expanding to open his shop in 1949. Initially the shop started as a newsagent and then expanded to selling toys.

Many people have shared memories of visiting the Romer Parrish toy shop on Linthorpe Road and the dolls’ hospital on Newport Road, including stories of how the shop looked in the 1950s.

The exhibit at Beamish will tell the history of toy shops and will show the development of new materials and toys in the 1950s, in particular the introduction of plastic toys and the wider variety of toys available as Britain moved out of post-war austerity. The North East had the highest number of toy shops outside London and was where manufacturers would test new toys before their official launch at toy fairs across the country.

Another key story is the dolls’ hospital element of the toy shop; lots of visitors and community members remember bringing their dolls to be repaired.

Beamish staff and volunteers have visited community groups across Middlesbrough, taking objects from the museum’s collection, including Muffin the Mule, Dinky cars, Pelham Puppets, dolls, Meccano and Tiddlywinks. These have sparked lots of conversations with people who remember them from their own childhood, or seeing toys on the packed shelves of Romer Parrish’s. These memories will inform the development of our own toy shop.

We held a community celebration in November 2016 at the Community Hub at Newport Settlement, in Middlesbrough, to celebrate the shop being built at the museum. The event featured 1950s objects, including toys, from Beamish’s collection, plus images of Middlesbrough past, and children’s activities.

Beamish’s Learning Team has worked with five primary schools in Middlesbrough, where children learned about 1950s music, household objects and toys, including the importance of Romer Parrish’s toy shop window and how the toys they play with today are different to the toys of the 1950s.

Schools visited the museum during February Half Term 2020 to see the recreation of Romer Parrish’s window in the 1950s welfare hall.

Beamish has also been contacted by former employees of Romer Parrish’s from the 1950s, whose memories, ranging from staff uniforms to the types of toys on sale, will be invaluable in the creation of our toy shop.

The former site of Romer Parrish’s is now part of Recovery Connections, a peer-led substance abuse recovery organisation based in Middlesbrough. The Remaking Beamish Team has worked with people recovering from addiction to explore the history of the toy shop in its original setting.

Among the other groups the museum has worked with are Nunthorpe Brownies, Streets Ahead Friendship Group, Age UK Teesside Social Memories, Cleveland Miniaturists, Age UK Teesside Craft Club, Acklam Memory Lane, Acklam Crafters, Acklam Knit and Natter, Newport Ladies, Middlesbrough Parkinson’s Support Group, Ageing Better Middlesbrough, Central Library Lego Club and Central Library Dementia Café.

If you have any memories of 1950s toy shops or dolls’ hospitals, please email Natasha Anson, Remaking Beamish Project Officer – Community Participation, email: natashaanson@beamish.org.uk.