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Established in 1970, the open-air Beamish Museum (Easter-Oct daily 10am-5pm; Nov & Jan-Easter Tues-Thurs, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; last admission 3pm; admission GBP12, GBP4 in winter; ), spreading out over 300 acres beside the A693 about ten miles north of Durham, is as popular with tourists as it is with local people, who come to chew the fat with the costumed guides, many of whom are recruited for their real-life experience. The collier who takes you down the reopened drift mine may once have been a miner, and some of the blokes driving the steam engine used to work for British Rail, adding a touch of authenticity and sadness to the proceedings, as these industries have deteriorated in tandem with the boom in heritage museums like this one. To get there , drivers should follow signs to the museum off the A1(M) Chester-le-Street exit, then follow the signs along the A693 to Stanley. By bus , take the #720 from Durham bus station (hourly) or the #709 from Newcastle's Eldon Square (hourly), which drop you close to the main entrance. In summer, hang on to your bus ticket and you'll get a discount on entrance to the museum, too. Buildings from all over the region have been reassembled here, and the museum divides into six main sections, linked by restored trams and buses and all painstakingly kitted out with period furnishings and fittings. Four of the sections show life in 1913, before the upheavals brought about by World War I: a pint-sized colliery village , complete with cottages, Methodist chapel, school, old stone winding house and drift mine; a farm inhabited by breeds of livestock that were popular in the period; a train station and goods shed; and a large-scale re-creation of a market town , its High Street lined by shops, bank, pub, dentist's surgery, newspaper office, garage, stables, sweet factory and solicitor's office. Two areas date to 1825, at the beginning of the northeast's industrial development: a manor house , with horse yard, formal gardens, vegetable plots and orchards; and the Pockerley Waggonway , where you can ride behind a replica of George Stephenson's Locomotion , the first passenger-carrying steam train in the world, which ran from Darlington to Stockton. There's a great deal to see and what with the summertime Victorian funfair, the Sun Inn pub and picnic areas, most people make a day of it - reckon on around four hours to get round the lot in summer, two in winter when only the town and train station are usually open.
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