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

I'm starting off with pictures of some of the buildings in the Township. The picture on the left is the bank, which I didn't go inside. The next picture shows some of the beautiful autumn foliage we saw, and also contains one of the elaborate lamp posts to be found in the Township. The other two pictures show two views of the same set of shop fronts, including the garage in the background, and the drapery and the china shop in the foreground. Stephen's back is visible in both of those pictures!

Here, I have stepped into the garage, where the walls are covered in the logos of yesteryear. I've included two different views of the Shew car. It's very rare, and I tried photographing it with the K10D and shake reduction and again with the *ist DS and flash. I believe that I prefer the left of the two pictures, which is the non-flash one.

From the window of the china shop, I have photographed a pyramid of enamel pannikins and a set of china. There are bowls included, so it's more than just a tea service, but doesn't appear to be a full dinner service. That might be all that was donated to the museum of a larger set.

Now we get into the more utilitarian china meant for the bedroom. The white ewer and basin were close to the small vessel with the blue pattern, which appears to be part of the blue patterned ewer and basin set.

I photographed the shop assistant just before we left the Township and I'm not sure that she was from the draper's shop, where I seem to recall seeing a male assistant, but I've included her picture with my drapery pictures. I believe that the drapery was using the flying fox system to send payments to a cashier who was not on the shop floor. I remember that system myself from Bell's in Mount Barker, where the assistants did not have money behind the counter, but sent it across the store to a cashier's cage, and then awaited the change from the cashier.

The next few pictures show items from the grocer's window, including an old scrubbing board. I remember Mother having one of those!

I believe that the promotional material for Andrews Liver Salt was in the grocery. I had to have a picture of it for my own Mr Andrews.

There was a great deal to see in the grocer's shop, with its long wooden counter and old fashioned cash register. The ladder allows the assistant to access the groceries on the upper shelves. This was before the days of self service, and everything was behind the counter on those shelves and the assistant had to get everything down for you.

Dairy produce and eggs are laid out, along with packets of beans and pulses - and even a selection of sweets, although nowhere near the variety you can get by stepping across the road to the sweet shop.

Here is the old fashioned cash register, along with the scales and a set of weights. You needed to be able to do quite a bit of arithmetic in those days, because the weights were in pounds and ounces, with sixteen ounces to a pound. None of this namby-pamby decimal stuff!

The last two pictures don't have much of a connection, apart from both being in the grocery, where tea was sold from an upper shelf, and greengroceries were sold at the back of the store.

Now we move on to the sweet shop.

Now this was a shop with a great many goodies on display in the window!

The interior of the shop was no less full of goodies, with the Fry's brand much in evidence on some of the shop fittings. Most of the stock inside the shop was definitely for sale - but they didn't expect you to buy it using pounds, shillings and pence: new money was more than acceptable!

The last shop I visited was the stationer, with the printer upstairs. Stephen's Ink was in evidence once again, and had to be recorded, along with the printing press upstairs.

By this time, the light was fading and the last tram was nearly due, so our excursion to Beamish was over. We did have another stop to make in County Durham before returning to our cottage in Yorkshire, though, as Angela, a friend who lives in County Durham, had invited us to dinner. She loves cooking and is very good at it, and we had a wonderful evening with her.