Beamish marks 50 years of Rowley Station, its very first rescued building

On 19 July 1976, the Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman formally reopened a small country railway station in a valley in County Durham. Fifty years on, Rowley Station is still welcoming visitors at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, and this summer the museum marked its anniversary with a special weekend of music, decorations and poetry.

Rowley was the first relocated building opened at Beamish. The station stood on the Stanhope and Tyne route in the hills of west Durham, opening as Cold Rowley in 1845. Passenger services ended in 1939, the last trains ran in 1969, and in 1972 the building was carefully dismantled and moved to Beamish, where it was rebuilt with its raised approach, steps and telegraph poles in their original positions.

The station has some lovely stories. It won Best Kept Wayside Station in 1912 under station master George Beattie, and in January 1910 heavy snow trapped a train there for about two days. Its original gardens were recreated in 2016, and the building has since been repainted in the correct North Eastern Railway colours.

Rowley's arrival was an early chapter in a much bigger story. Beamish opened to visitors on its current site in 1972, inspired by founder Frank Atkinson, and now covers around 350 acres with more than 304,000 objects. Its 1820s landscape, 1900s town and pit village, 1940s farm and growing 1950s town bring everyday North East life vividly to life, and in 2025 it welcomed 830,699 visitors. The Remaking Beamish project, approved in 2016 with £10.7 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, has added many of the newer exhibits.

The 1950s town is a particular delight, with its Grand Cinema hosting screenings this autumn including Nosferatu with live piano, Hocus Pocus around Halloween and The Polar Express on 21 November. October half term brings Beyond Coal, a week of activities about energy run with Durham University and East Durham Artists' Network.

The museum, a registered charity, is led by chief executive Rhiannon Hiles, who was appointed a CBE in the King's Birthday Honours.

Opening hours change through the winter, with the museum open Wednesday to Sunday for part of November and weekends only in January. Full details are on the Beamish website.