Beamish Museum: A Visitor's Guide

Just a few miles north of Durham, Beamish is one of the North East's great days out: an open-air museum where whole streets, farms and a colliery have been rebuilt and brought to life by costumed staff, vintage trams and the smell of a coal fire. It is easily a full day, and a firm favourite with families and history-lovers alike.

What is Beamish?

Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, is a 350-acre open-air museum that recreates life in North East England across different eras. There are no glass cases or labels here; instead you wander through real reconstructed buildings, most of them rescued and rebuilt brick by brick, and talk to costumed folk going about their daily business. Founded by Frank Atkinson and opened in 1970, it has grown into one of the country's best-loved attractions and was named Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2025.

The eras: what you'll see

The museum is divided into distinct time periods, each its own little world:

• The 1900s Town: an Edwardian high street of 1913, with a sweet shop, printer, dentist, garage and terraced homes above the shops.
• The 1900s Pit Village and Colliery: miners' cottages, a chapel and a school around a working pit, telling the story of North East coal at its peak.
• The 1940s Farm: wartime life on the Home Front, complete with Land Girls and the Home Guard.
• The 1950s Town: the museum's newest quarter, a post-war street of terraced houses, a cinema and shops added under the "Remaking Beamish" project, alongside 1950s Spain's Field Farm.
• The 1820s Landscape and Pockerley: Georgian Pockerley Old Hall and its gardens, and a working waggonway with early steam locomotives that tells the story of the birth of the railways.

Give yourself time in each; there is far more detail than you can take in at a glance.

Getting around: trams and buses

Vintage trams and replica Edwardian motor buses run a circular route around the site all day, roughly every twenty minutes, with stops near each area, and the rides are included in your admission. They are part of the fun as well as a welcome rest for tired legs, though the steps up into them are steep. The museum also runs accessible buses with tail lifts for wheelchair users.

Tickets: pay once, come back all year

Beamish has an unusually generous ticket. Standard admission is the Beamish Unlimited Pass, which lets you return as often as you like for a whole year from the date of purchase. At the time of writing, adult admission was £35, children aged 5 to 16 were £20.50, and under-5s went free, with a range of family tickets and reduced rates for seniors and students; Go North East bus travellers get 25% off. Prices change, so check beamish.org.uk before you go. Because there is so much to see, the year-long pass is genuinely useful, as few visitors manage the whole site in a single day.

When to go

Beamish is an outdoor site, so it is at its fullest and best in the summer season, when it opens daily from 10am to 5pm (the 2026 summer season runs until 23 October). Opening is reduced in the winter months and some areas close, so check the current opening times on the museum's website before travelling. Whenever you go, dress for the weather and wear comfortable shoes; the site is large, hilly in places, and has cobbled streets.

Getting there from Durham

Beamish is signposted from the main roads and only a short drive north of Durham, at postcode DH9 0RG, with free parking on site. There is no direct bus from Durham city, so by public transport the usual route is to change at Chester-le-Street, which sits on the Go North East 28 and 29 routes to Beamish. Travelling by Go North East also earns you the 25% admission discount.

Make a day of it

Beamish pairs well with time in Durham itself. Combine it with our guides to things to do in Durham and a weekend in Durham, and see getting to Durham for arriving in the area.