Helen Stephenson's North East England Holiday Pictures - October, 2007 - Beamish Colliery Village

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We walked down from the Home Farm to the Colliery Village, passing a field where there were retired pit ponies, which I didn't photograph. We passed by the replica open top double decker bus, which I've included on my first Beamish page and arrived in the village itself, where there was a church, which we didn't go inside; a school, which we did spent quite a bit of time exploring; a row of miner's cottages, which we explored from both the rear, where actors were reenacting the life of the early 1900s, and the front, where you could see the "best" room. Moving through the village, there are also mine workings to be seen - and experienced if you don a hard hat, which we didn't!

These pictures were captured using a Pentax K10D digital SLR camera.

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I'm starting this page with a picture taken later in the day from the tram we rode at the end of our visit to Beamish, hence this picture is somewhat darker than some of the others due to the lateness of the hour on an October day. This picture shows the major buildings in the Colliery Village: the school is at the left, with the Methodist church at the right rear. You can just see the roofline of the row of miner's cottages behind the school.



Here are closer views of the exterior of the school and the Methodist church.



The next set of pictures are all from the school. First is the classroom for the youngest children. Those desks with their inkwells bring back memories for me! The second picture is the open fire in the classroom; the third picture is a thermometer on the exterior of the school, which was sponsored by Stephens Inks. I had to have a picture of that, as it was gratifying to know that Stephen has his own inks! The final picture is from the washroom.



The next four pictures show us glimpses into the front rooms of some of the miner's cottages.



The rears of the miner's cottages can also be explored. There is washing hanging on the line and the bathtub hung up on the wall. Inside, we have range cookers.



There are people in the cottages carrying out a variety of tasks. This lady has finished her baking for the day and is now sitting down and doing her knitting, while her baking is displayed on her kitchen table. We saw other crafts being performed, with hooking rugs being one that comes to mind, but I didn't get a photograph of that.



The end cottage of the row is the mine office, where the furniture reflects the administrative nature of the building.



The Temperance Bar was open for refreshments - non-alcoholic, of course!



Now we've moved on to the mine buildings. Stephen is standing in front of the one on the left.



	I started taking photographs through an open door or window of one of the mine buildings, but they were running machinery in there and it was spraying liquid about, so I decided to hop back a bit smartish and do without further pictures from there!

		We left the Colliery Village by passing beyond the mine and into the woods behind, from where we made our way across to the Pockerley Waggonway.