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Museum Details
Big Pit: National Coal Museum
Image: Big Pit National Coal Museum
Big Pit: National Coal Museum
Blaenafon
NP4 9XP
Torfaen
Wales
Collection details
Archives
Industry
Science and Technology
Social History
Facilities
Parking: yes
Food: yes
Shop: yes
Guided tours: yes
Study area: yes
Wheelchair access: yes
Visual disability facilities: yes
Tours take approximately 1 hour.
You will need warm clothing and sensible footwear.
Wheelchairs can go underground (please book).
Contact details
General information (Tel)
:
(01495) 790 311
General information (Fax)
:
(01495) 792 618
E-mail
:
bigpit@museumwales.ac.uk
Website
:
www.museumwales.ac.uk
Open
February-November
Daily 10.00-15.30
Please telephone for details of winter opening
Closed
Please telephone for details
Admission charges
FREE
Description
Big Pit is a real colliery. It was the place of work for hundreds of men, women and children for over 200 years - a daily struggle to extract that precious mineral that stoked the furnaces and lit the household fires of the world. Kitted out in helmet, cap-lamp and battery pack, you descend 90 metres to another world; a world of shafts, coal faces and levels, of underground roadways, air doors and stables. Your pit lamp lights an inky darkness - darker than you can imagine. But you are never alone. Guided by an ex-miner, with easy good humour and first-hand knowledge, you get a real sense of life at the coal face. Returning to the surface, the colliery buildings, the winding engine-house, the blacksmiths workshop and pithead baths complete the picture of a working pit that at its height employed 1,300 men.
Key artists and exhibits
Mining
;
Coal mining
;
Industrial history
;
Pithead baths
;
Engineering
;
Mine shaft
Articles
News In Brief - Week Ending March 30 2008
News In Brief - Week Ending June 24 2007
News In Brief- Week Ending February 25 2007
News In Brief - Week Ending January 7 2007
News In Brief - Week Ending December 10 2006
News In Brief - Week Ending August 6 2006
Schools And Museums ICT Project Wins Becta Award At BETT
Trails
VE Day 60 Years: The Bevin Boys - Fighting The War From The Coalface
Hidden Treasure Trail 6 - The People's Museum In Wales
General Information
Brochure or leaflet available with directions to museum
Pre-booking service for groups
Foreign language leaflet or brochure available
Guided tours
Collections
Object identification and/or written enquiry service
Disability Access
General audio-guide available
Toilets for disabled
Wheelchair access to all public areas
Wheelchairs available for loan
General Education
Education facilities available
General audio-guide available
Member of staff available with responsibility for education
Reception and lunch facilities for educational groups
Teaching/resources available for HE/FE students
Schools Education
Primary school education service available
Printed/audio-visual information available for schools
Secondary school education service available
Facilities
Cafeteria
Facilities for private functions and events
General audio-guide available
Refreshments
Research facilities for academics
Restaurant
Shop
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Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.