The winner of the UK’s most significant museum prize of the year has officially been declared. Beamish, The Living Museum of the North has been crowned Art Fund’s Museum of the Year for 2025.
The County Durham open-air attraction won the grand prize at a ceremony in Liverpool last Thursday, beating fellow contenders Chapter in Cardiff, Compton Verney in Warwickshire, Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast and Perth Museum in Perth. You can read more about each of those shortlisted venues here.
With more than 800,000 visitors a year, Beamish guides visitors through the history of northeast England, from the Georgian era through to the 1950s, with live costumed actors and immersive exhibits. You can wander through an 1820s farmhouse, attend a school from the 1890s, watch people working in a 1900s colliery and witness town life as it would have been in the post-war era, featuring people playing the roles of dentist, chemist, bank teller and other characters.
The museum earned particular recognition this year for its Remaking Beamish project, which involved over 32,000 community members, 14,338 schoolchildren, and 35,000 volunteer hours to create 31 new exhibits within the museum. In 2024, it also launched its aged miners’ homes, an exhibit that tells the story of the ‘pioneering welfare provision for retired miners in County Durham’.
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Jenny Waldman, ArtFund’s director, 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 judges were blown away by the remarkable attention to detail of its exhibits across a 350 acre site and by the passion of its staff and volunteers. With three quarters of adults in the north-east of England saying museums make them proud of where they live, Beamish is a shining example of how museums enrich and celebrate local communities.’
The museum received a generous £120,000 as part of its big win (the largest museum prize in the world). It says that the cash will go towards learning, health and wellbeing programmes and into enhancing the visitor experience even further.
Rhiannon Hiles, the chief executive at Beamish, said: ‘We are incredibly excited and truly elated to be named Art Fund Museum of the Year 2025. To receive such a prestigious award is a real honour, a phenomenal achievement, and is credit to the amazing people who make Beamish such a special place. Thank you to our fantastic staff and volunteers and to our communities, visitors, supporters and partners for their support.’
Past winners of Art Fund Museum of the Year
The very first Museum of the Year prize was awarded to London’s William Morris Gallery. Here’s a roundup of all the winners since then.
- 2024 – Young V&A, London
- 2023 – The Burrell Collection, Glasgow
- 2022 – Horniman Museum and Gardens, London
- 2021 – Firstsite, Colchester
- 2020 - Aberdeen Art Gallery; Gairloch Museum; Science Museum; South London Gallery; and Towner Eastbourne.
- 2019 - St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff
- 2018 - Tate St Ives
- 2017 - The Hepworth, Wakefield
- 2016 - Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London
- 2015 - Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
- 2014 - Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield
- 2013 - William Morris Gallery, London
See Time Out’s roundup of the very best immersive living museums in the UK and our pick of the 22 best museums in the country.
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