Beamish living museum near Durham--worth the cost?

I'll be watching for the answers since I'll be in the area in September. Right now I'm not going there but it would be easy to add it. Rick mentions it but I noticed he didn't give it any triangles in the latest book. My itinerary has a stop in Durham to see the cathedral and attend evensong. We then do a late dash to Once Brewed where we'll spend the night. The next day we'll tour Housesteads Roman Fort and decide whether we like it enough to spend more than two hours. Staying longer would cut out Bamburgh Castle. I've never seen Bamburgh Castle either. Even though it gets a good review, I can't help but think it's "another castle" which won't be all that thrilling after Windsor, Warwick, Conwy......

I enjoyed my visit, but it was back in 2004. It's a bit different from most open-air museums as it's recreating a mine and town, rather than just collecting buildings. I learned some things I didn't know.

I visited this museum a couple of years ago and quite enjoyed the experience, but then I'm a big fan of outdoor museums and of exploring how regular folks lived (as opposed to all those castle inhabitants). There's a small museum and then you travel around the very large enclosed grounds. There are old-fashioned shuttles to take you around to the main areas which include a farm area, a town village and then the mining site with it's village. The town village was a bit too recreated, but the other areas were quite wonderful. The town did provide places to eat, however. Do take time to visit Durham itself--both the cathedral and to walk around the town and near the river. We lucked out and the organist was practicing in the cathedral when we were there--it was an amazing sound.

My information could be dated because we visited Beamish quite a few years ago. We too love open air museums and were very pleased with the time we spent at this one. I would return to it if we went back to that area again.