As seen elsewhere on the blog, recent attention by the Site Support Team has been focussed upon the station area.  As part of the repainting work there, I thought we should restore the James White coal merchants office to its original green colours (those carried when it arrived at Beamish in 1984) in order to ring the changes and improve the visual separation between what was NER controlled/owned and what was an active merchant on its premises.  The original signage (some of which is still to be restored to the building seen below) is green on white, and photographs showing its flat-pack arrival also reflect the green livery.

The building was originally located at Hexham, in a coal yard adjacent to the NER station there.  The collection included internal furnishings, which were enhanced when the building was reconstructed  in the station yard here.  Dating from c1900 it was rapidly re-erected and has been a feature of the yard ever since.  As it has not featured on the blog before, I thought I would include this information plus scans of the drawings – for anyone else who wants a small shed (or to model one) of genuine regional extraction!

Below: Here is the office before restoration to its green colours.

Below: And here it is following repainting and the refitting of most of the signs.

Below: Here are a couple of interior views.

Below: Finally, the drawings.