Yesterday afternoon myself and my mam took our dog Poppy to Beamish. Well it was partly for her enjoyment and partly for ours. For those of you that have never heard of Beamish, firstly, have you been living under a rock? And secondly here’s a little description from their website:

‘Beamish is a world famous open air museum. We tell the story of life in North East England during the 1820’s, 1900s and 1940s.’

Think lots of people walking around in old fashioned attire. Houses and businesses from past times looking exactly as they should, an old fashioned sweet shop to die for, and an abundance of other things to get you excited about the past. 

We go to Beamish a lot. It's about five minutes away from where we live, it’s dog friendly and there’s just something magical about going back in time and seeing how things used to be. Beamish was the school trip that every kid used to love. Now, years later I still get excited about jumping on a tram, or taking a little trip into the mines.

It had started off as a cloudy day yesterday when we went to the Quayside, by the time it got to 3pm and we were heading to the museum it was like a whole different day.

The weekend of 18^th and 19^th April was ‘Horses at Work’. It wasn’t until we were going home that I realised. I even said to my mam, ‘Eee there’s quite a few horses about unlike normal.’ (I kid you not) If I had just looked at the leaflet we were given to start with it would have all made sense. (Nevermind.)

There were horses about working the fields. There were some on display, dressed as they would have been back in the day. You could take a ride on a horse drawn carriage. There was even a fortune teller in a traditional Romany wagon.  

We just spent our time casually walking about just taking in the scenery and taking the odd photo. I think Poppy was pretty tired at this point anyways, so we went through the 1900s pit village to the town, which was heaving with people, there was a massive queue for the sweet shop. I don’t blame them though, Beamish sweets are amazing. We got a couple of bottles of dandelion and burdock (if you go to Beamish get some dandelion and burdock, you won’t be sorry) and lay on the grass in the park next to the old band stand. It was lovely as they've planted lots of nice flowers. There were kids rolling down the mini hills and the sun was shining. It was nice just relaxing.

Afterwards we headed for an ice cream. It was far from your average Mr Whippy. It tasted like heaven. We even let Poppy have a cheeky taste.

We were only at the museum for an hour, and as you can see from the photos I only really took them around the Pit Village area. There have been times when I've spent the full day at Beamish just soaking it all up. It's great if you want to do that, but also just as good if you're looking for a quick trip.

We have unlimited passes where you pay a one off fee and can visit for free for the rest of the year. They cost £18.50 each. You can buy tickets online too. There's options to get students and family tickets and things too.

At the moment, the museum is open seven days a week from 10am til 5pm. Last admissions are at 3pm too. (we got there just in time on Sunday without even knowing it.) I'm just pleased I've renewed my ticket so that I can carry on exploring. Spring is here too, with Summer not far behind so its the perfect time for it. Did I mention they have a sweet shop?

Have any of you been to Beamish Museum?