Beamish Open Air Museum

Today we had a trip to one of our favourite places - Beamish Open Air Museum. I've blipped from there several times before, for example here and here.

I had fun taking longish exposure shots of the carousel in action as you can see here. We also enjoyed the 1950s town which has grown quite a lot since our last visit - it took us back to our childhoods in the 50s and 60s. We enjoyed a 20-minute Pathe newsreel from 1954 in the reconstructed cinema (note: we admit that we were alive then but not old enough to remember anything from that year!).

Naturally I took lots of photos (a Google album may be constructed if I have time in the next few days). I liked the advert in an old technology shop (first extra). The 2nd extra was taken in the winding house of the coal mine where we had a fascinating talk about the role of the winding man who worked the lift. Seemingly there were two settings - "men" and "coal": the latter made the cage move much faster than would be comfortable for the miners themselves. Woe betide any miners who upset the winding man who would be tempted to "accidentally" bring them back up the shaft on the wrong setting!