Looking for that perfect present this Christmas? Beamish, The Living Museum of the North can help you find a unique gift for your loved ones.
From Edwardian-inspired spiced apple bath salts and Jubilee Confectioners’ sweet treats to the museum’s own version of Monopoly and an exclusive bauble, the Christmas gift range is inspired by Beamish’s collections and exhibits.
All of the wonderful presents are available from the recently-launched online shop and can be purchased during a visit to the museum.
Matthew Henderson, who works in Beamish’s Retail Team, said: “It’s so exciting to be selling Christmas presents online for the first time. The Beamish online shop means you can get your family and friends a special present from the past.
“Many of the wide range of products are based on Beamish exhibits and have been created using the museum’s collections, and most of the products have been made at Beamish or by local suppliers and are exclusive to the museum.”
Visit www.beamish.org.uk to browse the fantastic festive items available. All of the beautiful gifts can be sent with a free personalised message.
Here we take you through 25 of our favourite items with the Beamish “Present from the Past” Advent Calendar Gift Guide.
1. Beamish Festive Mix
Treat your family and friends by bringing the museum’s famous sweet shop to their home with this beautiful Jubilee Confectioners tin, filled with a cracking Christmas selection of hardboiled Beamish sweets – perfect for the festive season! This new mix includes Indian limes and mulled wine, poached pear, spiced orange and pumpkin drops.
The reusable tin is based on an original design from Beamish’s collection and contains 4oz of Festive Mix, made in the museum’s 1900s Town sweet shop – a fantastic gift for Christmas.
There’s a delicious selection of sweets available on the online shop including favourites such as rhubarbs and custards, cinder toffee, lemon sherbets, bonbons, pear drops, cola cubes, sarsaparilla, fudge and sherbet. All sweets ordered online cost £4.99 and come in our Jubilee Confectioners souvenir tin.
2. Christmas at Beamish Luxury Bauble
Beamish is proud to present its first Christmas at Beamish luxury fine bone china bauble! Regularly requested by visitors, the museum is excited to offer this delightful decoration online this Christmas.
A lovely keepsake to cherish for years to come, the Beamish bauble features the museum’s iconic chaldron logo and beautiful Christmas at Beamish decorative text, and hangs on a red velvet ribbon with gold fixing.
The bauble measures 65mm D x 180mm H (including the length of ribbon) and has been screen-printed and decorated in the UK. Give the gift that sparks happy Beamish memories year after year.
£15.
3. Beamish Bath Salts
Treat your loved ones to some well-deserved “me time” with Mr Kerrison’s relaxing bath salts. Handmade in rural Northumberland, the salts are inspired by original recipes in the Beamish collection.
The museum’s new spiced apple salts will help melt away those Edwardian stresses after a hard day’s work in the Co-op. £2.99 per pack, minimum weight 100g.
4. Beamish Jigsaws
With Beamish’s new jigsaws you can bring a piece of the museum to your own home – 1,000 of them to be exact!
Choose from the first Beamish Christmas jigsaw featuring snowy scenes in The 1900s Town, a transport puzzle showing a steam roller, tram 31, Daimler bus and Ford Tourer car on The Town street or picturesque Pockerley gardens. The Co-op hardware jigsaw is quite tricky! Can you work out if it’s a carpet beater, a bar of soap or a brush?!
Produced by one of the UK’s few remaining jigsaw puzzle manufactures, the puzzle boards and boxes are made from recycled card. The paper for the photograph is FSC certified and the glue is starch based, all of which helps to reduce the carbon footprint of these products.
£23.50 each.
5. Beamish Monopoly
Beamish has combined your favourite North East attraction with your favourite family board game to create Beamish Museum Monopoly!
Make your way around the board, collecting some of the museum’s most iconic attractions, including Pockerley Old Hall, Davy’s Fish and Chip Shop and Annfield Plain Co-op – who’ll get Jubilee Confectioners?! Beamish Museum Monopoly is the perfect way to combat those Boxing Day blues!
£43.50.
6. Cadbury’s Chocolate
For the chocolate-obsessed family member or friend… Buy delicious Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate wrapped in 1900s or 1951 design packaging. The replica wrapping is based on original packaging from the museum’s collection and has been made in an exclusive collaboration between Beamish and Cadbury.
Fun fact – the 1900s Dairy Milk packaging, which the museum is selling a replica of, was Cadbury’s first-ever purple bar!
£5 for 110g bar. £12 for 360g bar.
7. Festive Face Masks
The practical but pretty present… a festive face mask! Each cotton mask is handmade in the museum’s costume department and features a traditional Christmas pattern. Masks cost £6, patterns may vary.
8. Award-winning Cold Creams
For those who love the finer things in life… Beamish’s popular cold creams, which won Best Product Award 2020 in the Cultural Enterprises Awards, are the perfect Christmas gift or stocking filler.
As well as the museum’s geranium, neroli and orange, ylang ylang and patchouli cold creams, there is now a festive frankincense and myrrh scent available. Cold cream is a multipurpose cream – an all-in-one cleanser, make-up remover and moisturiser.
The creams are based on a 1900s recipe from a handwritten notebook belonging to Sunderland pharmacist Alfred Kerrison, the great uncle of journalist Kate Adie.
“Cold” refers to the cooling sensation it gives after being applied, believed to be due to the water content of the cream evaporating from the skin.
£7.99 per pot, 4.5cm x 5.5cm, min 50ml.
9. My Kerrison’s Lip Salve and Solid Perfume
Also based on an original Alfred Kerrison recipe are Beamish’s vanilla, geranium and cinnamon lip salves and white rose solid perfumes. Like the cold creams, they are made exclusively for the museum on a small Northumberland farm.
None of the ingredients used in the salves, creams, salts and soaps are tested on animals and the containers are all recyclable. For a full list of ingredients in each product visit www.beamish.org.uk.
Lip salve – £3.95 per pot, min 15ml.
Solid perfume – £6 per pot, min 15ml.
10. Beamish 1900s Town Shortbread and Fudge Barrels
‘Tis the season to indulge! Christmas isn’t complete without tempting treats and Beamish’s fudge and biscuits barrels are hard to resist.
Designed by North Yorkshire-based artist Richard O’ Neill and inspired by classic 20th century travel art, the barrels depict the museum’s iconic 1900s Town street and contain delicious clotted cream shortbread and clotted cream fudge (both 200g). Produced in the UK.
Shortbread barrel – £4.75. Fudge barrel – £4.25.
The Mahogany Drift Mine mini chocolate chip cookies tin and tea and ginger biscuit barrel (inspired by the shape of the iconic miner’s lamp) also make great gifts!
11. Top Trumps
For the transport enthusiast… Travel through the museum’s fascinating transport history with Beamish Top Trumps. Discover new and exciting facts about the impressive Beamish transport collection, including trams, locomotives, buses, cars, tractors and rarely-seen vehicles, as you try to trump and win your opponent’s cards.
£7.50 per pack, made in the UK exclusively for Beamish.
12. Museum Mugs
Whether they’re a ready-to-march Suffragette, a Beamish Motor & Cycle Works enthusiast or a drift mine deputy in the making, Beamish has a mug for the tea or coffee lover in your life!
Maybe they’re a fan of old sayings – like “shy bairns get nowt” and “children should be seen not heard”?
How about the “got to have a biscuit with my cuppa” type? Beamish has a mug (and the broken biscuits) for them as well… Plus, you can also buy loose leaf tea and coffee online, meaning they’re set for the perfect cuppa.
To see the range of mugs, including some inspired by Beamish’s collections and designed in the museum’s print shop, visit www.beamish.org.uk.
13. Beamish Courant Tea Towel
Designed in Beamish’s 1900s Eagle Press Print Works, this tea towel contains many of the iconic shops and businesses found at the museum including The Sun Inn, W Smith’s Chemist and Jubilee Confectioners.
The design was originally started in the 1980s and, to celebrate Beamish’s 50th anniversary, the museum’s skilled printers spent over 70 hours updating the design before it was turned into this limited-edition tea towel. Produced in the UK, £9.99.
14. Herron’s Bakery Treats
For the first time this year the museum is selling delicious Christmas cake and tea loaf – the perfect yuletide treat! Handmade in Beamish’s bakery exhibit in The 1900s Town, the scrumptious cakes make the perfect presents. Tea loaf (530g) is £9.75 and Christmas cake (800g) is £16.
You can also give the gift of Herron’s Bakery gingerbread this Christmas! Choose from either six or nine pieces of the scrumptious squares. Six pieces – £12.50, nine pieces – £14.75. Gingerbread is approximately 85g per piece.
These items come wrapped in Herron’s Bakery-branded greaseproof paper and are presented in a beautifully-designed Joseph Herron tin. The museum recommends enjoying the delicious gingerbread and tea loaf within seven days, and the Christmas cake within three months. Last Christmas orders to be placed on 16th December, to be posted out 18th December.
15. Herron’s Bakery Gift Items
The perfect present for the baker in your life… Put a smile on their face with the Herron’s Bakery kitchen essentials! The beautifully-branded rolling pin and chopping board will have them baking beautiful biscuits and scrumptious scones like a true Edwardian baker in no time. Plus, there’s a jute bag for transporting their delicious baked goodies and an enamel sign which is based on the beautiful sign writing on the front of the bakery exhibit.
See the full range here www.beamish.org.uk.
16. One-stop Stationer’s Shop
From colouring pencils and complete-beginner calligraphy sets to memo pads, greeting cards and handprinted notebooks, the stationer’s section of Beamish’s online shop is a must for presents for all crafty companions.
Why not buy them a slate and pencil set – otherwise known as the “Victorian iPad” – so they can channel their inner 1900s student? Keep them busy this Christmas with lots of Beamish-inspired creative projects.
17. Bairn’s Bib
A bait time bib for bairns! Beamish’s 100% cotton bib, featuring the North East term “Bait Time”, has a wide, stretchy neck and is machine washable. So no need to worry if the bairns divven’t gan canny with their Christmas bait! One size fits all. £9.99 each.
18. The Perfect Christmas Cuppa
Treat them to a warming cup of tea or a canny cup of coffee with Beamish’s new teas and coffees! The museum worked with local suppliers to create new blends especially for Beamish that are inspired by the museum and the history of the North East. The packaging artwork in based on originals in the collection and are inspired by Edwardian produce in Beamish’s 1900s Town Co-op store.
Beamish Blend Tea tin is £7.50.
Beamish ground coffee is £5.50.
19. Beamish Garage Air Freshener
The perfect stocking filler! The Beamish garage air freshener will bring a clean, fresh scent to any vehicle, whether they’re driving a 1933 Morris Commercial or a more modern motor! The design is based on the beautiful signwriting on the front of the Beamish Motor and Cycle Works exhibit in The 1900s Town. Produced in the UK exclusively for Beamish, £2.50 each.
20. Enamel Signs
Treat your family and friends to a gift inspired by their favourite Beamish exhibit. The museum’s enamel signs are designed especially for Beamish and are based on the beautiful signwriting on the front of the museum’s buildings. Choose from Jubilee Confectioners, The Sun Inn, Beamish Branch Office, The Town stables, Herron’s Bakery, W Smith’s Chemist, Beamish Motor and Cycle Works and Georgian-inspired signs including a warning about man traps and one advertising Pockerley’s large pig!
View the full range here www.beamish.org.uk.
21. Jubilee Bear
The museum’s Golden Jubilee Bear is the perfect Beamish companion. This limited edition keepsake is an essential gift for every Beamish supporter. Wearing a “Beamish Museum 50th Anniversary” brown and gold ribbon, the bear’s paw has also been beautifully embroidered to mark the museum’s 50th anniversary year. Bear is 18inch x 11inch, £50.
22. Votes for Women Range
Votes for Women Range – Beamish Museum Gift GuideBeamish’s Votes for Women range will ensure the aspiring Suffragette or Suffragist in your life is ready to march for women’s right to vote!
Choose from mugs, coasters and pencils which have been designed in the museum’s 1900s Town print shop – the hessian satchels, notebooks and tote bags have also been printed in the exhibit.
Plus, there are magnets and playing cards inspired by the cause, and locally-made rosettes and handmade sashes in Suffrage colours – purple for dignity, white for purity and green for hope.
Beamish’s Alison Gardiner range features iconic scenes and characters of the Suffragette movement, presented in her signature style. Choose from a tote bag, magnet, tea towel and tea in a tin. They’ll be chanting “Deeds not words!” in no time…
23. Beamish Books
Top up the coal on your fire and settle down with a good book… Beamish famously featured in the Downton Abbey film and you can buy a copy of the Downton Abbey Official Film Companion, which features the museum. Plus, pick up the new Beamish guidebook and a signed copy of The Book of Samson, which was written by the museum’s Assistant Director Transport and Industry Paul Jarman.
Don’t forget to get them an Eagle Press Print Works or Jubilee Confectioners leather bookmark for the full Beamish bookworm bundle! The bookmarks feature line drawings of the iconic exhibits as well as the Beamish logo.
24. Sweet Tooth Stocking Filler
Another brilliant Beamish stocking filler! This limited edition Christmas bundle includes an exclusive Jubilee Confectioners tin filled with 4oz of mixed bonbons, a locally-made 40g Belgian milk chocolate Jubilee bar and a leather, embossed sweet shop keyring. The perfect present for the Beamish sweet shop-obsessed!
£9.49 per tin.
25. Give a Dog a… Beamish Treat!
Give a Dog a… Beamish Treat! – Beamish Museum Gift GuideTreat your four-legged friends this Christmas with Beamish’s new dog biscuits! Handmade in the North East, your dog will love them just as much as they love visiting the museum! Choose from beef, chicken and cranberry and oats biscuits. The packaging has been designed using originals from the museum’s 1900s Town Co-op department.
110g per bag, £4.75.
Visit www.beamish.org.uk to see the full range of unique Beamish Christmas gifts and stocking fillers available. Please note, last Christmas orders need to be placed on 16th December, to be posted out 18th December.
As well as the above items, you can also pick up a range of beautiful gifts during a visit to the museum including traditional barley sugar travel sweets, clotted cream and rum and raisin fudge bars, jars of sweets including rhubarbs and custards and rosey apples, and Christmas character and Brussel sprout chocolates. The museum also has a selection of alcoholic beverages, including cherry wine, pinot grigio, mulled wine and damson wine.
Other items coming soon include Jubilee Confectioners swirl chocolate bars, country kitchen-style jams, marmalades, conserves and pickles based on 1900s originals in the museum’s stores, milk chocolate stirrers with mini mallows, and mince pies.
Beamish is a charity and 95 per cent of the museum’s income is from its visitors, including ticket sales, catering and retail. Beamish’s closure due to the coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on the museum – purchases made from the online shop are supporting the museum.
Beamish is open daily, from 10am to 5pm, until 1st November. From 2nd November onwards, open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm (see website for full 2020 opening times). Timeslot tickets need to be booked in advance, in line with COVID-19 Secure guidance. To book, visit www.beamish.org.uk.
