WHETHER you call them proddies, proggies, hookies or lambs' lugs, there's no doubt that rag mats had a special place on the floor of many a home in the North-East.

Now a new exhibition at Beamish Open Air Museum hopes to take you back to a time when they had a place in practically every home.

The exhibition, in the Porter Room at the Beamish town, features traditional abstract and geometric designs as well a mat made in celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Also featuring in this year's exhibition are two mats loaned to the museum by Elsie Marley, of Stanley, one of which commemorates the millennium.

Visitors will be able to see demonstrations of mat making every day in the pit cottages in The Colliery Village during the exhibition from July 8-30.