|
|
|
|
The National Coal Mining Museum is in a rural setting, complete with nature trail, but covers the history of mining. You get the chance to go 140ft underground in one of Britain's oldest working mines, see various collections, and see two pit ponies and a shire, now retired, on the surface. It is based on the site of the old Caphouse Colliery at Overton in West Yorkshire. This mine was worked from at least 1789 until the seam was exhausted in 1985, following the UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985), and work was started to convert it into a museum. The men were transferred to Denby Grange Colliery at nearby Grange Moore. It is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The tour underground, where models and machinery depict methods and conditions of mining from the early 1800's to the present, lasts approximately one hour and each visitor is provided with a hat, belt and battery, so that the true atmosphere of working life underground is captured. Experienced local miners guide the tours around the underground workings and they share their mining experiences with you. They don't allow you to take a camera underground. Exhibitions cover not only the coal face and underground mining, but mining work on the surface, and home life of miners. Communication between miners underground and the movement of coal has its own areas. The new exhibition '1842 - a faithful picture?' is in a small historic building at the heart of the Museum's historic core. The exhibition illustrates the history of women and children in the coal mining industry throughout England. It allows you to compare and contrast work at coal mines with other types of work that women and children did in the 19th Century. You then move on to discover what happened to women at the pit and the continued work of women on the pit top, before considering other women workers at the pit, in the canteen, offices, nursing and more recently mining with the repeal of the act. See the steam winder, experience the sounds and smells, and the pit head baths. The mine railway has been reinstated and you can ride it between Cap House Colliery and Hope Pit. There are two colliery's on this site, the newly restored Hope Pit (opened 2005) has restricted opening, see below, it is a fascinating colliery complex, which was once connected to Caphouse underground. The buildings focus on the science of mining and give an insight into how a small pit ran. Hope Pit houses another shaft development of the 1830's. There are several typical historic pit buildings, including the Inman Shaft pumphouse, the electric winding engine house, compressor house, fan house and colliery workshops. On open days there will be line shafting, winding engine and blacksmith demonstrations, please contact the Museum for details. Future development include the development of a Victorian miners cottage, and enhancing the underground tour.
This page is a Quick Guide, the idea of Quick Guides is to allow very basic information and linking forward information to be added to the system rather than having to wait until a full location guide has been developed. It should therefore be considered a development stage rather than a finished objective. Once more information is known the objective is to create either a Location or Featured Location page which has two grids and far more information. Please let us know any other information that we can add to the Further information and Planning Grids or page and any errors that you discover. Before making a long trip to any location it is always wise to double check the current information, websites like magazines may be correct at the time the information is written, but things change and it is of course impossible to double check all entries on a regular basis. If you have any good photographs that you feel would improve the illustration of this page then please let us have copies. In referring to this page it is helpful if you quote the CIN Page Ref at the bottom of the Planning Grid above. To print the planning grid select it then right click and print the selected area. Please submit information on locations you discover so that this system continues to grow.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|