Big Pit National Coal Museum

NP4 9XP Blaenafon - Blaenavon, Great Britain (UK) (Wales)

Big Pit is a real coal mine and one of Britain's leading mining museums.
With facilities to educate and entertain all ages, Big Pit is an exciting and informative day out.
Enjoy a multi-media tour of a modern coal mine with a virtual miner in the Mining Galleries, exhibitions in the Pithead Baths and Historic colliery buildings open to the public for the first time.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Big Pit National Coal Museum (Welsh: Pwll Mawr Amgueddfa Lofaol Cymru) is an industrial heritage museum in Blaenavon, Torfaen, South Wales. A working coal mine from 1880 to 1980, it was opened to the public in 1983 under the auspices of the National Museum of Wales. The site is dedicated to operational preservation of the Welsh heritage of coal mining, which took place during the Industrial revolution.

Located adjacent to the preserved Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway, Big Pit is part of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, a World Heritage Site, and an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

The National Coal Museum

For some years before closure, the mine had been identified as being a possible heritage attraction and a working group was set up made up of the National Coal Board, local government, the National Museum, the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Office. Soon after the pit closed, Torfaen Borough Council bought the site for £1 and it was given to a charitable trust called the Big Pit (Blaenavon) Trust to manage the conversion to a heritage museum. The mine reopened for visitors in 1983 and created 71 jobs.

A number of buildings were subsequently given protected status at the site. The Powder House, Saw mill Office Electrical Workshop, Pit Head Building, Headframe and Tram Circuit, and Miners' Bathhous were each given Grade II Listed Building status on 2 September 1995. The Powder House building was used to store explosives needed for mine work during the time Big Pit was an active mine.

The museum features a range of above ground attractions including a winding house, saw mill, pithead, baths. Visitors are also taken below ground to the pit bottom where they tour the mine workings] In 2000, the Blaenavon industrial area, including Big Pit National Coal Museum, was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This was in recognition of the town's importance to the Industrial Revolution.

Safety

The mine is covered by HM Inspectorate of Mines regulations, because it is still classed as a working pit.
 Visitors wear a plastic hard hat, safety lamp, and a battery on a waist belt which weighs 5 kilograms (11 lb). Visitors must also carry on their belt a rebreather, which in case of emergency will filter foul air for approximately one hour, giving a chance for survival and escape.

Before taking the 50 minute underground tour 90 metres (300 ft) below ground, contraband must be surrendered, such as anything containing a dry cell battery from watches to mobile phones. The dangers of the mine are real, the safety posters on the stages of Carbon Monoxide poisoning serve as museum pieces and as real reminders of the dangers underground. Automatic gas monitoring systems are discreetly positioned around the tunnels, as are emergency telephone systems. Some safety beams were monitored around the area

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