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The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on the museum of the year: a history of the north-east in 3m objects
'Real museums are places where time is transformed into space,' Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate, writes in his 2008 novel The Museum of Innocence. Pamuk created a small museum of everyday objects based on the novel in celebration of his home city of Istanbul. A long way from the Bosphorous, this is what Beamish, the Living Museum of the North sets out to do, recreating the 19th- and 20th-century working-class history of north-east England over 350 acres in County Durham. Last week it won the prestigious Art Fund museum of the year award. The shortlist included museums from the UK's four nations: Perth Museum, which opened last year; Chapter, a multi-arts space in Cardiff; Golden Thread, a contemporary arts hub in Belfast; and Compton Verney, an 18th-century Warwickshire mansion, whose sculpture park is home to Louise Bourgeois's Spider. Inspired by the open-air museums in Scandinavia, Beamish was founded by Frank Atkinson, who became its curator in 1970. At the time, his vision of rebuilding a slag heap really did mean taking coals to Newcastle, but he recognised that the region's industries, and with them its identity, was in danger of disappearing. The people of north-east England 'tended to have a chip on their shoulder about their past, proud of it and yet feeling that it was undervalued', he said. 'The museum was for them. Tourism didn't exist up there when we first planned it.' Where many museums have struggled to return to pre-pandemic figures, last year Beamish welcomed 839,000 visitors – the highest number in its 55 years. As part of a £20m development project, a 1950s village has been added to its Edwardian town, with miners' cottages and a farm. Buildings from the surrounding area have been transported brick by brick and many of the 3m objects have been donated from people's attics. From teapots to trolleybuses, this is the ephemera of ordinary lives. More than 800 local volunteers and staff in period costumes bring the past alive. There are no glass walls, velvet ropes or wall captions. You can buy bread from the Victorian bakery, pat pit ponies and get a 50s bouffant blow‑dry at the hairdressers. This is clearly a sanitised version of the past, where you can go down a pit without getting your hands dirty. The cultural historian Robert Hewison included Beamish in what he identified as a Thatcherite phenomenon of ersatz nostalgia and commercialisation: 'Instead of manufacturing goods, we are manufacturing heritage,' he wrote in his 1987 polemic The Heritage Industry. In a region where the waiting list for social housing has increased dramatically in the last five years, an idyllic 'model' village might have been expected to cause resentment. Instead, research shows that it is a source of pride. Local museums tell local stories. They also employ local people and bring in visitors. In its first year, Perth Museum exceeded its visitor target by 50%, while city-centre footfall also increased. For many, museums are as much a part of the British summer as music festivals and sporting events. They are certainly a lot cheaper. With the world's treasures in our pockets, and limitless information at our fingertips, today's museums must offer something more, especially for children. Long before mobile phones, Beamish was one of the first immersive museum experiences. Here the past is not a foreign country – you can get there on a tram.
Telegraph
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Inside Beamish, the immersive museum bringing 1913 back to life
In the town print shop, the shopkeeper's inky fingers move fast as she turns the letterpress frame over and slots in a new section of type. Behind her hang rows of prints, pegged to a line to dry before being sold in a shop down the road. In this first-floor room, the air is suffused with the smell of burnt sugar from the sweet shop below, where women in white aprons are making cinder toffee in front of a gaggle of wide-eyed schoolchildren. Outside, a woman in a long skirt, straw hat and suffragette sash worn across her chest, stops to talk to a man in a suit and bowler hat as a tram clatters past. I haven't quite stepped back in time, but I've come pretty close. This is the 1913 town at Beamish – the open-air, living museum in County Durham, where visitors can buy bread freshly made using a historic recipe in Herron's bakery, set their teeth tingling with a batch of cinder toffee from the sweet shop, have their portrait taken in JR & D Edis Photographers' studio, and enjoy a pint of local ale in The Sun Inn. Nominated as one of five shortlisted museums for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2025, the winner of which is announced tomorrow, it is far and away the most fun of the finalists. After all, where else can you hop straight from the Edwardian era into a 1950s cinema just by getting on a tram? The whole of Beamish, which was founded by Frank Atkinson in the late Sixties, is like this. As well as the 1913 town, there is the Georgian Pockerley Hall, gardens and Drovers Tavern (where I enjoyed a Salmagundi salad – a Georgian-era recipe – for lunch); a 1900s pit village and colliery with a former working mine; farms from the Forties and Fifties with live animals and fecund vegetable patches; and, most recently, a 1950s town. This latest addition opened last year, complete with a milk bar where you can buy a milkshake, a cinema where you can watch a period film and a hairdresser where you can get your hair styled in the fashions of the time. All the buildings are either faithful reproductions or have been transported, brick by brick, from their original locations – the listed bandstand in the park and the little row of pretty, brick-fronted houses opposite in the 1913 town were originally in Gateshead; the pub came from Bishop Auckland and the Co-Op stores from Annfield Plain, just up the road. The vast majority of the objects in each building, from the bolts of cloth and glass-fronted cases of collars and handkerchiefs in the drapers, to the candlesticks in the pit cottages, are originals from the period that have been donated. It's completely fascinating. As the museum's director, Rhiannon Hiles – who started volunteering here 25 years ago and is today dressed in Fifties garb – puts it, 'the power of an open-air museum is that immersive experience.' I first visited Beamish when I was about eight, on a school trip in which I vaguely remember dressing up as a maid. Similar gaggles of schoolchildren throng the streets of the museum today, all of whom seem as charmed as I was back in the Eighties. Ask almost anyone in these parts if they've been to Beamish and their eyes will light up at the memory – the dressing up; the sweets; the jumping on a vintage bus or tram to trundle down the hill and up again. This is why Beamish is so beguiling: there are no boring wall displays of endless text to read here; no hand-wringing references to the evils of Britain's colonial past, or endless contextualising of history through a modern lens. There are no textual explanations at all, in fact, just a series of museum workers in period garb ready to tell you about the family who lived in this particular cottage, or take you through your ABCs in the early 1900s schoolroom, warmed by a proper coal-burning fire. Interiors, too, are not hidden behind glass walls or velvet ropes ('I don't really like barrier ropes', says Hiles). Visitors can walk into and pick up and touch things: there are no absolutely priceless objects on display. The entire focus is on the mundane and everyday: on ordinary social history, however parochial it might seem. It's slightly twee, and sometimes mildly jarring, but it's utterly charming, far less exhausting than the standard exhibition experience and, crucially, for a modern museum, very accessible. 'The open museums which I love – and the ones where you see the greatest footfall – are the ones which have the context and mean something to ordinary people,' explains Hiles. 'When they come in, they can go. 'Oh, that looks like my Gran's kitchen used to.'' This democratisation of Britain's historical past – which has in recent years seen the likes of the National Trust and English Heritage see more interest in the below stairs history of their properties – is a model that appears to be serving Beamish well. Last year, it saw its highest number of visitors: 839,000, a number that has been growing steadily since it reopened its doors post-pandemic. Hiles thinks this growth is partly due to the special place the museum holds in its visitors' hearts, many of whom were first brought here as small children, like I was, then return with their own children and grandchildren. 'People think of Beamish as theirs,' says Hiles. It helps that the price of admission (£33 for an adult; Beamish is independent and gets no government funding) lets you return as many times as you want for a year. Of course, nothing can be entirely authentic and it's true that Beamish offers something of a sanitised version of history. There are none of the revolting smells that would have accompanied daily life in the early 20th Century; none of the dangers that lurked down dark alleys, and little of the sense of desperation and deprivation that would have haunted many everyday lives. 'I've had this conversation with people for many years about rose-tinted glasses,' admits Hiles – although she says that when you do truly try to recreate mess and filth and reality, 'visitors don't tend to go into the space'. The one part of the museum that does evoke a strong sense of the harsh realities of an earlier age is the 1900s pit village. A short row of miners' cottages – cosy with their coal-fed fires, but tiny – would have been unbearably crowded when filled with the families who lived in them: one is set up as belonging to an Irish Catholic family (who really existed) and would have had 14 people living in it. In each of the cottages, the miner would have slept in the parlour – no family would have wanted to risk their livelihood by sending a man up and down the rickety ladder to the loft to sleep with all the trip hazards that entailed. Children would have gone, briefly, to the school, but aged about 14 would be sent down the pit. You can even go down the pit yourself, and I did. It's uncomfortable within minutes: dark, damp, dripping and low-roofed – 4ft 6in at its highest, the legal height a mine had to be for the pit ponies who hauled out the coal (the tallest miner who worked in this particular drift mine was 6ft 7in, our guide informs us). Mining was filthy, exhausting, dangerous work: eight hours a day, six days a week chipping away at the seams with a pick and shovel, sometimes on your stomach in the heat and the dark. You'd only get paid for how much coal you dug and the majority of the time you'd be doing it in almost pitch darkness. Emerging, blinking into the light and joints-aching, for a moment I get a sense of what life was like for communities like this back then. For all its tweeness and semi-sanitisation, Beamish has done its job. Perhaps I'll come back here with my own grandchildren one day. The Museum of the Year award is announced on June 26; Art Fund Museum of the Year: the other shortlistees Chapter, Cardiff This social space and cultural centre includes a gallery, artists' studios, theatres, cinemas, a cafe and community garden. It's known for showcasing independent and arthouse films, as well as supporting local artists. Compton Verney, Warwickshire A quintessential country house-and-garden combo, this Grade I-listed 18th-century mansion turned art gallery is set in 120 acres of Capability Brown parkland and features six art collections, a sculpture park and a cafe. Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast A spanking new (it reopened in the city centre last year) contemporary art gallery in the heart of Belfast, which has two large gallery spaces, a community participation and engagement hub, plus Northern Ireland's first visual art library and archive. Perth Museum, Perth This beautiful Edwardian building – once the City Hall, now a newly developed museum – has just had a £27 million redevelopment facelift, and houses the Stone of Destiny (aka the Stone of Scone), which was used during the coronation of Scottish monarchs and returned to Perthshire in 1996 following 700 years in Westminster Abbey.
Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
These are the five best museums in the UK — have you visited them?
On the day that Art Fund announces the shortlist for its museum of the year award it's customary for pundits to catalogue all the ways in which the UK's 2,500 museums are under threat. Let today be no exception! Since last year's award there has been a general election, won by a party that promised to support museums and find ways of increasing public access. Some emergency funding has duly been provided: £120 million to be shared among the national museums; £20 million to help civic museums to stay open. But no one believes museums are out of trouble. With some shining exceptions they are struggling to reach the visitor figures they had before the pandemic. Their heating bills have gone through the roof. If they are backed by a local authority they have probably been clobbered by cuts to their subsidy. They aren't getting as many school trips as education budgets tighten. And in many museums vital maintenance work is being postponed. Yet it's also customary on this day to point out that, against all odds, some museums are finding exciting new ways to present their collections and engage with audiences they have never reached before. Five such instances are on this year's shortlist — none of them, refreshingly, from London or the home counties. Each will receive £15,000, with £120,000 awaiting the winner, announced on June 26. Here are snapshots of all five. Origins: This magnificent 500-acre open-air site, surrounded by woodland, was visited by 838,000 people last year, making it the most popular attraction in northeast England. Jewels in its crown: Reconstructions of how life was lived in this industrial heartland at various times in the 19th and 20th centuries, complete with staff in period costumes and even historically themed food outlets. 'We have an original drift mine here, a stunning Georgian manor farmhouse and a 1940s farm,' says Rhiannon Hiles, the chief executive. 'The rest is translocated [has been brought in from other places], to use a very museum-y word.' Recently: Beamish has just extended its historical range with the creation of a 1950s town. Challenges: The museum's founder, Frank Atkinson, wanted the museum to recreate communities within living memory, so in the next decade or two the Beamish will need to expand to the 1970s or 1980s. If it won the £120,000: 'We run a brilliant wellbeing programme which needs more investment,' Hiles says. 'We have a waiting list of groups of people with, for example, dementia who want to use the museum. I hate having a waiting list. We need to address that.' • Pull in the young — a daunting mission for our museums Origins: Founded in 1971 by two artists in a former Edwardian school building, it's now a thriving multipurpose arts centre with theatre, gallery, cinemas, rehearsal spaces, café and in its crown: It provides working space for 80 artists and creative companies. 'They are the beating heart of the organisation,' says Hannah Firth, Chapter's artistic director. 'We do a lot of co-curating with them, and I think it's vital to give Welsh creative talents support and space so they can work without leaving Wales.' Recently: Lots of schemes have been launched to make the centre accessible to all, including pay-what-you-can tickets, packed lunches for children in school holidays, and a 'no questions asked' community larder. Challenges: Several vital cultural organisations in Cardiff are in financial difficulties, and the Welsh government doesn't seem to have many answers. 'It's a very tough time to run an arts centre,' Firth says. If it won the £120,000: 'We missed out on our 50th anniversary because of Covid,' Firth says, 'so we want our 55th year to be a celebration of our achievements and those of the wider arts community here.' Origins: Splendid 18th-century mansion rescued from dereliction by the philanthropist Peter Moores. Jewels in its crown: Six world-class art collections, cheerfully unrelated to each other, from British folk art to Chinese bronzes,and 120 acres of parkland designed by Capability Brown. Recently: Last year an ambitious Sculpture in the Park exhibition featured work by Sarah Lucas, Permindar Kaur, Helen Chadwick and others. 'Peter Moores used to say things like 'open doors, open minds',' says Geraldine Collinge, the chief executive. 'He wanted to create an accessible gallery in the middle of the country. We try to build on his legacy.' Challenges: 'Our visitor figures are 20 per cent up on pre-Covid figures, but we have to make sure we get the pricing right to fund everything we want to do without putting people off,' Collinge says. 'Under-18s go free, we have a community pass for local visitors, and last year we launched a £2 ticket for people on income support and pension credit.' If it won the £120,000: 'We would continue to invest so more and more people discover this wonderful place,' Collinge says. • The idea of 'free' museums needs to be put out to pasture Origins: 'We started out in the late 1990s up on Crumlin Road, between the two communities,' says Peter Richards, the co-director. 'It was deemed to be the epicentre of civil unrest. Then we transitioned to a former electricity switch room. We are now on our third iteration, in Queen Street in the city centre.' Jewels in its crown: Golden Thread is Belfast's leading contemporary art gallery, showing Northern Irish artists and international work. Recently: The move to Queen Street allowed expansion to two large gallery spaces and a community and participation hub. 'That's placed right at the front of the building, with big windows so that people passing can see what's going on inside,' says Sarah McAvera, the co-director. 'That makes the place much more approachable.' Challenges: 'Arts funding per head in Northern Ireland is among the lowest in Europe — a fifth of what it is down south [in Ireland],' McAvera says. 'And Belfast has some of the highest deprivation rates in the UK. That's why it's really important that everything we do, including workshops, is free.' If it won the £120,000: 'That money would be genuinely life-changing,' McAvera says. 'It's over half of what we get each year from the Arts Council. We could use it to do extra projects we couldn't contemplate otherwise.' • Museums take note: we're tired of colonial guilt Origins: Though now in new premises, its collections are among the oldest in the UK, dating back 200 years. Jewels in its crown: It houses the Stone of Destiny, now back in Perthshire after 700 years, and the 3,000-year-old Carpow Logboat. 'We reckon we tell 10,000 years of history,' says Helen Smout, the chief executive. Recently: The museum reopened in March last year in the former Perth City Hall, following the £27 million redevelopment of a building closed for nearly 20 years. Since then it has attracted 250,000 visitors. This summer's big exhibition is about Macbeth, the man and the play. 'Both Birnam Wood and Dunsinane Hill are just up the road,' Smout says. Challenges: 'When we opened last year there was a lot of 'what's it going to do for us?' scepticism among local businesses,' Smout says. 'We have to show them that the hotels are full and the shops booming because of the extra visitors we have attracted.' If it won the £120,000: 'I would set up a transport fund for schools that are struggling to send classes here for a visit,' Smout says. Which museums do you think should be considered for the award next year? Let us know in the comments
