Image: Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, © David Levene, Art Fund 2025.
County Durham’s open-air museum recognised for community engagement and heritage preservation in world’s largest museum prize.
Beamish, The Living Museum of the North has been awarded the £120,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year prize for 2025.
The County Durham open-air museum, which brings North East England’s Georgian, Edwardian, 1940s and 1950s history to life through immersive exhibits, was selected from five finalists.
Rhiannon Hiles, chief executive of Beamish, received the award from comedian Phil Wang at a ceremony held at the Museum of Liverpool last night, 26 June 2025.
The museum operates across a 350-acre site where visitors engage with costumed staff and volunteers whilst experiencing regional stories of everyday life. This year marks Beamish’s 55-year anniversary.
Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund and chair of the judges, said Beamish “is a museum brought to life by people – a joyous, immersive and unique place shaped by the stories and experiences of its community”.
The panel of judges included artist Rana Begum, Dr David Dibosa from Tate, Jane Richardson from Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, and comedian Phil Wang. The judges visited each finalist to inform their decision-making.
Waldman said the panel of judges were “blown away” by the attention to detail of its exhibits, describing it as a “shining example of how museums enrich and celebrate local communities”.
Phil Wang, who served as both judge and presenter for the award, said his recent visit to Beamish “was one of the most fun days I’ve had in years”.
Wang added: “An unbelievable level of commitment from staff, and a jaw-dropping amount of detail ran through everything. They had to drag me kicking and screaming out of there!”
The museum completed its Remaking Beamish project in the past year, which involved recreating a 1950s Town with community input from people with firsthand knowledge of the original spaces.
The year also saw the opening of the aged miners’ homes, which tell the story of pioneering welfare provision for retired miners in County Durham.
Beamish has previously earned the Travellers’ Choice Award and last year the Visitor Welcome Award at last year’s Museums + Heritage Awards (pictured above).
The other shortlisted museums were Chapter in Cardiff, Compton Verney in Warwickshire, Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast, and Perth Museum in Perth & Kinross. Each of the four other finalists receives £15,000, bringing the total prize money to £180,000.
The prize is funded by Art Fund members who purchase a National Art Pass.
