Museums in Northumberland, Newcastle, Scottish Borders
Woodhorn, Ashington
At Woodhorn Museum and Archives in Ashington, people can learn how events, tumultuous and everyday, affected their ancestors.
Now that tracing the family tree is becoming a national obsession, interest in the new centre at Ashington is keen. It contains 800 years of history in documents and photographs from official sources and private owners, including wills, census returns, church registers, gravestone inscriptions and military service records.
Entry is free at Woodhorn, built at a former colliery and focusing in part on the mining industry, from the daily lives of pit families to work by Ashington’s famous Pitmen Painters, who are celebrated in the play by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall.
The museum is open April-October 10am-5pm Wednesday-Sunday (Mondays and Tuesdays in the school holidays) and November-March 10am-4pm. The Northumberland Archives and Study Centre is open 10am-4pm every day.
A few miles away is Newbiggin Maritime Centre, an all-weather attraction on the seafront that opened in summer 2011. It covers life in a historic fishing village and has an interactive exhibition on former Newbiggin lifeboat the Mary Joicey, which saved 90 lives, and the coble Girl Anne as well as a cafe overlooking the bay. The museum is open 10am-5pm Monday-Saturday and 10am-4pm Sundays (closes on Monday in term time).
In the Tyne Valley, the central section of Hadrian’s Wall in the National Park has a wealth of Roman interest from 2,000 years ago.
Vindolanda Roman Fort
Vindolanda, run by a charitable trust, is the only place on the Wall to see archaeologists unearthing artefacts. The Vindolanda Tablets – voted Britain’s top treasure – were found here in 1973. The 400 postcard-sized messages on wood describe how the Britons fought and asks the army to send more beer. Some have come home from the British Museum to be displayed in a hermetically sealed case.
The trust’s Roman Army Museum nearby has three galleries and a 3D film bringing to life the existence of a soldier on the edge of empire. Both open 10am-6pm April 1-September 30, and 10am-5pm October 1-31, seven days a week.
At the northern frontier is Berwick Museum and Art Gallery, a lively place to visit which includes an outpost of Glasgow’s Burrell Collection, created by a magpie millionaire. Next to it is the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Regimental museum in Berwick Barracks, among the first purpose-built barracks in Britain. Both are open Monday-Friday 10am-5pm April 1-September 30. Closed weekends.
Near Berwick, just over the border on the banks of the River Tweed, is the Adam brothers’ Paxton House, considered the finest 18th century Palladian country home in Britain. It stands in 80 acres of woodland, parkland and gardens and displays masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland.
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