Industrial revolution - East of England
You don’t even have to imagine how working life was at some of the maritime, mining and railway museums in the East of England, because you can see it relived in the flesh (and the cast iron, and the beautifully polished copper). You can put on a hard hat, cap-lamp and wellies and go down a mine at Killhope, The North of England Lead Mining Museum; try your hand at chores in an 18th century seaport at Hartlepool’s Maritime Experience (www.hartlepoolsmaritimeexperience.com/) and travel by steam train and visit the old engine workshops at the Locomotion experience at Shildon.
Or sample a little of everything at Beamish (www.beamish.org.uk/), The North of England Open Air Museum, which houses a working farm, town, drift mine and manor house recreating life in the 1800 & 1900’s. Just try and stop your mouth from watering at the smell of the home-baked bread! No wonder they were awarded the Gold Award for Large Visitor Attraction in the Enjoy England 2005 Excellence Awards. Whilst there visit the Masonic Temple for a unique insight into the world of freemasonry in the early 1900s or steam along in period carriages pulled by Puffing Billy on the 1825 Beamish steam railway.