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The Monkwearmouth Station museum, Sunderland

Compiled by John W Grant

 

The Monkwearmouth Station was designed by local architect Thomas Moore in 1848 and was designed in the Greek Classical Style, it was opened in 1876 and until the bridge over the River Wear was built it was the terminus station at Sunderland for trains from both Newcastle and Gateshead. It closed in 1967 to rail traffic when trains were switched to using the mainline station over the bridge in the centre of Sunderland. The Sunderland Corporation later bought the station and after a major refurbishment it was reopened in 1973 as a rail museum to preserve not only the handsome, neo-classical building but to also provide displays of both local history and transport. The restoration also included the original booking office, which had remained unchanged from 1866.

Visiting this splendid Victorian station enabled people to experience a sense of travel in times gone past, you can explore the ticket office as it was in Victorian times and also find out what it was like to work on a station in the past, you can also stand on the platform where the children were evacuated to other parts of the country during the Second World War. You can also discover what its like in a freight guard's van and watch the modern trains and metro's zooming past in the platform gallery.

The museum closed on the 31st August 2005 for an extensive restoration and redevelopment programme and is due to reopen in the summer of 2006, visitors will be able to enjoy a range of exciting new displays and activities in the newly refurbished and fully accessible museum. These changes will include a complete transformation of the Children's Gallery, which will enable young visitors and their carers to learn together in a stimulating transport-themed environment. The first floor will be converted to provide two dedicated education spaces for school workshops, community groups and adult learners. The total investment in the museum is over 900,000 pounds of which 497,000 pounds has been awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund as well as other funding from Sunderland City Council, the Dept of Culture and Media and Sport, the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund as well as the Friends of the Sunderland Museums and the Tyne & Wear Museums Business Partners Fund.