The Heritage Centre BellinghamExplore the Heritage of the Northern Borders

Welcome to the Heritage Centre Bellingham, unassuming on the outside, like a tardis inside.

An old fashioned red cast iron Telephone Box with a dial telephone inside. Dial a number and listen to a voice from the past. There is also a telephone outside the box at seat level if you want to site down or need to use a wheelchair. Telephone boxes like these used to be everywhere but are an increasingly rare sight now.

We have a display of model railway engines and railway toys. One such model was a 1/12th scale working steam engine which used to pull passenger 'carriages' on a line in Exhibition Park, Newcastle.

There is a selection of old railway, road and advertising signage spread throughout the Heritage Centre. Can you spot them all? You may need to look up!

These are some of the railway tickets from stations on the line. They are called Edmundson tickets and were invented at nearby Brampton Station (then Milton Station) by Thomas Edmondson in the 1840's nearly 200 years ago. Can you work out where the ticket holder was going to and from and what type of journey they were undertaking? Also in the picture can you see the pre-decimalisation coinage in use in the UK before 1971. Can you tell what these are worth in today's currency?

Before the railways had electic signalling all signals were lit by lamps. Lampmen would have to keep these working and change the wicks which burnt the paraffin which constantly needed topping up. Lampmen worked from many stations filling lamps and carrying them down the line to put in the signal gantrys. It was a never ending  job!

Come and find out all about the Reivers who used to inhabit the Borderlands between England and Scotland. Learn about their lives and how they defended themselves from raids. It must have been a tough existence - one we can barely imagine now.

Dodd, Dixon, Armstrong, Robson ....... Are you descended from a Reiver family? Come and look at our display map of Reiver family names from the period 1600-1700. Is your family name there? Press one of the buttons to see if it lights up the map.

We have a large selection of cameras which were widely in use before the days of the mobile phone. 'Box Brownies' and more sophisticated fold down cameras. We have a collection of camers you can handle. Do these bring back memories?

Bellingham village photographer W.P.Collier took many many photos of people, places and events in the area around between 1912 and 1937. This is our re-creation of his shop where he would both develop and print his films and then sell the postcards he made from the pictures. It won't have made Collier much money but it has left a fantastic legacy of images for us to see today in the Heritage Centre collections where we have over 1,700 images from the past for you to see.

Come and see Arthur Grimwood's forge transported from nearby Stannersburn and rebuilt in the Heritage Centre. See the video about the work of a village blacksmith. When we were donated the forge and its tools there were also two bottles of beer. It's hot work running a forge and the beer was used to cool down and hydrate. Nice work if you can get it!

Our artist-created mural displays 105 themes of Northumbrian history, culture, myth and legend.  How many will you be able to spot?

Every year we have two or three seasonal exhibtions. Come back and revisit to see something new. As a Friend of the Heritage Centre your membership entitles you to free entry as many times as you like. Membership starts at £10. For everyone else get your receipt at reception when you pay for admission to get 50% off your next visit (within a year). That's what I call getting value for money!