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Big Pit National Coal Museum

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Big Pit National Coal Museum

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BIG PIT NATIONAL COAL MUSEUM: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)

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Big Pit National Coal Museum

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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

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Big Pit National Coal Museum

Blaenavon, Wales, United Kingdom

The Big Pit National Coal Museum in Wales tells the story of the British coal industry, and features tours of its historic buildings and mine.

Lily Johnson

22 mar 2021.

About Big Pit National Coal Museum

Big Pit National Coal Museum in Wales tells the story of the site that was once at the heart of the British coal industry. Located within a former coal mine, the museum explores both the history of this industry and the experiences of those who worked in it, alongside the wider significance of the Blaenavon coal networks.

Big Pit National Coal Museum history

Big Pit began its life as a working iron mine, initially hand dug around 1810 – five decades before the invention of dynamite. Its shallow iron deposits meant that the mine was relatively near to the surface, and it was given the name Engine Pit Level. Though no contemporary records of this first iron mine survive, in the 1960s miners explored the level and found an old mine cart that is today displayed in the museum.

The first record of a mine called Big Pit exists from 1881, at which time it was a working coal mine. Its name derived from the pit’s elliptical shape and vast proportions, measuring 18ft by 13ft, making it the first mine in Wales big enough to allow two tramways. Over the next few decades the mine was expanded to reach deeper coal seams, and at its peak in 1923 had 1,399 men working there. The mine produced House Coal, Steam Coal, Ironside, and Fireclay, and at one point was exporting as far as South America.

In 1939, the Pithead Baths were installed at the mine, meaning miners no longer had to trudge home to their families caked in dirt – this risked illness and required the time-consuming manual filling of baths at home.

Over the second half of the 20th century the number of workers at Big Pit dwindled, before on 2 February 1980 it closed for good. It was reopened as a museum in 1983 however, and in 2000 was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the wider Blaenavon industrial area, in recognition of its 19th century role as the world’s major producer of iron and coal.

Big Pit National Coal Museum today

A tour of the Big Pit National Coal Museum offers a real insight into this world, allowing visitors to walk through the old mining buildings and even take an underground tour 300 feet down into an old mineshaft. Tours are run by former coalminers, who provide personal interpretations of the site’s history, while above ground there are also exhibits about coal mining history, dealing with issues such as nationalisation, trade unions and safety.

A number of the mine’s historic buildings may be explored including the blacksmith’s forge, miners’ canteen, stables, and winding house. The Pithead Baths in particular offer an insight into the daily life of the miners, in which the locker rooms and showers that once helped the pit’s workers to scrub off the thick coal dust remain intact.

Getting to Big Pit National Coal Museum

Big Pit National Coal Museum is located in Blaenavon in Wales, near the Brecon Beacons National Park. It lies just south of the A465, and is signposted from its first exit, or alternatively can be reached via the A4043 from the southeast. The nearest train stations are Abergavenny and Pontypool & New Inn, both around 7.5 miles away, while the Stagecoach 30 bus service stops directly at the site.

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Underground at Big Pit National Coal Museum

The big pit national coal museum in blaenavon, wales, is part of the blaenavon industrial landscape, named a world heritage site in 2002 in recognition of the area’s importance to the industrial revolution..

This story was created for the Google Expeditions project by Amgueddfa Cymru, now available on Google Arts & Culture

Underground at Big Pit National Coal Museum by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

Guided by a real miner, visitors to the museum can descend 90 metres (300 feet) in the pit cage to see what life was like for those who worked at the coal face. Historic colliery buildings house exhibitions that help to tell the story of the coal industry in Wales.

At its peak, the mine employed over 1,300 people and produced over a quarter of a million tons of coal a year. Big Pit closed in 1980 and reopened 3 years later as a museum.

Big Pit winding gear

Big Pit was a working coal mine from around 1860. Part of a larger network of coal workings established by the Blaenavon Iron and Coal Company, it was the most important colliery in the town. This is the winding mechanism for the lift, or pit cage, which goes down into the coal mine. When the mine was working, the pit cage carried miners underground and brought the coal to the surface. 

Winding engine house by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

Winding engine house

This building houses the winding engine, which provides the power to take the pit cage up and down. Though the engine is over 50 years old, it has been fully modernised with safety systems and computers controlling and monitoring its operation.

This coal tip was formed from waste dumped from the mine. Coal tips have been known to slide, sometimes with disastrous results if they are close to houses. This coal tip has been stabilised and is unlikely to slide.

Big Pit in 1910 by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

Big Pit in 1910

This is Big Pit in 1910, when it was a working mine employing over 1,000 people. You can see the pit winding gear and drams, or carts, of coal.

This is the pit top area where visitors receive helmets, cap lamps, belts, batteries and ‘self-rescuers’—the same equipment used by miners—before going underground in the pit cage. The attached offices were used by the colliery manager and his senior staff. Most are still used for their original purposes, with the timekeeper’s office restored and the officials’ lodge converted into a first aid room.

Self-rescuer

The self-rescuer is a type of respirator that allows people to breathe safely if there is gas present underground. In an emergency, self-rescuers give people time to get to the surface.  In the past, canaries were used to test for gases underground. 

A canary in a coalmine by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

A canary in a coalmine

‘Sentinel species’, including bees, bats, cats, and dogs, have been used to detect substances in the environment that are harmful to humans. Canaries are sensitive to toxic gases and were once used as an ‘early warning system’ to detect gases in mines.

Helmet and cap lamp

Helmets and cap lamps are essential for safety and visibility underground. In the early days of mining, there was no safety clothing or equipment, and lighting was provided by candles.

Contraband sign

‘Contraband’ is the term for any material that is forbidden from being taken underground. This includes naked flames or batteries that could cause an explosion if there were gas present in the pit.

This is the pit bottom area, where the cage stops after its descent. Visitors descend in groups of up to 18 people—many more people would have been crammed into the cage when the pit was working. Once underground, visitors are guided by a former coal miner on a 50-minute walk around the coal faces, engine houses and stables. The guide explains the different ways in which coal was mined and transported, and shares some of his own experiences.

The pit cage at Big Pit

This is the pit cage, a lift that carried miners and now carries visitors in and out of the mine. The ‘pit bank’ around the top of the shaft was a busy place with men and materials arriving at the surface or waiting to descend. 

Miners in the cage by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

Miners in the cage

Today, the cage descends 90 metres (300 feet) at 3 metres per second. It went faster when Big Pit was a working mine. Speed was needed to get these miners to work quickly and bring mined coal up as soon as possible.

The banksman is responsible for getting people in and out of the cage safely and communicating with miners above ground via the signalling system.

Roadway into the mine

Emerging from the pit cage, you can see the start of the roadways into the mine, along with drams of coal that would go up in the pit cage to the surface if the pit were working.

Pushing drams underground

During the course of a working shift, drams were filled with coal and taken to pit bottom from the coalface. Before the 1840s, women and children were responsible for pushing or pulling the drams of coal to pit bottom or out of the mine. This could happen hundreds of times a day.

Journey of drams

Mined coal was put into drams—wheeled carts that ran on tracks—o be hauled to the pit cage and up out of the mine. The image shows a ‘journey’ of drams—a number of drams of coal ready to go. 

The mine railway

These miners are pushing drams on their track, but we know that horses were generally used to pull the drams at Big Pit. Mine railways came before the above-ground railways carrying steam engines that developed in Great Britain in the early 1800s.

Air door boy by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

Air door boy

Children as young as 5-years-old served as ‘air-door boys’ in the mines of South Wales. They opened a door in the pit tunnel to let horses and drams through and then closed it. Air doors were used to control airflow through the mine.

Mine signalling system

Our guide is demonstrating an early underground communication system. In 1913, the worst coal mining disaster in British history occurred in the Universal Colliery, Senghenydd, where 439 men and one rescue worker were killed in an explosion. The cause of the explosion is not known, but it may have been set off by the electrical signalling system.

Wires for signalling

In this signalling system, an electrical circuit was created by joining 2 wires connected to a bell. The bell was rung in coded series to indicate different needs. The system was dangerous because it created a spark that could ignite gas or coal dust.

Overhead haulage house

In the late 19th century, machines replaced the labour provided by horses in the pit. Haulage engines like this one at Big Pit could pull up to 30 drams at once.

Underground stables

Horses pulled drams of coal from the coalface to the pit bottom and also brought empty drams and timbers and supplies back down. There were several stables underground at Big Pit where they lived. The horses went back up to the surface only once a year, during the miners’ holidays.

Name plate on stall

72 horses worked at Big Pit during its heyday. The horses were named, and you can clearly see 2 of their nameplates on the stable walls: Bullet and Victor. Every coal mine had a blacksmith’s workshop for repairing tools and making horseshoes. 

Shaft and gun harness

The harness for a horse working underground was called a shaft and gun. It was attached to a collar around the horse’s neck.

Robbie wearing shaft and gun by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, GA&C

Robbie wearing shaft and gun

Robbie was the last authorised pit pony in Great Britain. He was retired to an RSPCA ret home in 1999. Pip, the last surviving pit pony in Great Britain, died in 2009. 

The coalface

The coalface is the place where the miner worked, using various tools to cut the coal. Sometimes it was necessary to break up the coal with explosives. Drills like the one the miner is using were hand operated and used to create holes in which to place explosives to blast the coal or stone. This blasting was called shotfiring.

Here the miner is using a drill but the miners’ main tool was called a mandrel, which was a pickaxe with a point on each side. 

Shovels and ore buckets were also useful tools in the pit.

Pithead baths

The pithead baths at Big Pit were actually showers provided so mineworkers could wash at the end of a shift. Walking through the pithead baths today, it's difficult to imagine the great impact this facility had on the lives of the miner and his family. 

Daily routine

Each miner had a ‘clean’ locker and a ‘dirty’ locker. Leaving his ordinary clothes in the clean locker, the miner changed into his work clothes before going underground. At shift’s end, he left his work clothes in the dirty locker, showered, and put on his clean clothes.

Washing at home

Prior to the introduction of baths, miners had no option but to travel home dirty and wash in a tin bath, in front of the fire or outside in the ‘bailey’ (backyard).

Pithead baths lockers

Inside the locker area in the pithead baths building, former miners have been memorialised with placards telling their stories.

Bert Coombes

Bert Coombes worked as a miner for more than 40 years. After witnessing the death of 2 friends in the mine, he was moved to write about the lives of miners. His autobiography is called ‘These Poor Hands’.

Women’s Work

This was Ann Land’s locker. Although women were barred from working underground in 1842, they continued to work aboveground in some coal mines. From the early 20th century, these jobs included nurses, canteen staff and office staff.

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Big Pit – National Coal Museum

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Discover Wales’s rich mining heritage in this amazing award-winning interactive museum complete with underground tour. Experience the sights, sounds, smells and atmosphere of an authentic coal mine. In its heyday Big Pit employed 1,300 workers. Now you can follow in their footsteps through award-winning interactive exhibits, and of course, our world-famous underground tour. Led by a real mine, it will give you a living, breathing taste of what life was like for those who made their living at the coal face. If you’d rather stay on the surface, you can enjoy a virtual tour of a modern coal mine in the multi-media Mining Galleries. The Pithead Baths exhibition, with its warm wit, images and objects brings the story of coal mining in Wales to life. A moving, informative and entertaining exploration of the lives of the miners, at home and work, which was voted Wales’s Favourite National Treasure Don’t leave without seeing the Lamp Room, Blacksmith’s Forge, and Fan House and find how the Explosives Magazine was designed to be extra safe. A range of activities and events take place throughout the year. Opening Times Daily from 9.30 am-5 pm. Please call for opening times during December and January. Entrance Charges Free entry. Car parking charge.

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We have a great Moscow Metro & Stalin Skyscrapers Private Tour across all famous metro stations, available for you every day.

1. Famous Moscow metro stations

Kievskaya (circle line).

The station was opened on March 14, 1954. It was named after the nearby Kievsky Railway Station. Decorating of station is devoted to friendship of Russian and Ukrainian people. Rich mosaic decoration is made from smalt and valuable stones by project of Ukrainian architects, chosen from seventy-three works presented on competition.

Kievskaya (Dark-blue line)

It was opened on April 5, 1953. Design of the station is devoted to the Soviet Ukraine and reunion of Ukraine and Russia. The station is decorated with a large number of the picturesque cloths executed in style of socialist realism in fresco technique. The fresco «Holiday in Kiev», made in 1953 was practically destroyed in 2010, due to an accident during nearby constructing works. While the fresco recovery, restorers revived its original appearance that had gone through many changes since its creation.

Ploshad Revolutsii

The station was opened on March 13, 1938. The most interesting feature of the station is 76 bronze figures, situated in niches of 18 arches. This peculiar gallery of images of Soviet people, aimed to personify force and power of the country, its glorious past and bright future. One of the bronze sculptures — a dog that accompanies a frontier guard — is believed to bring good luck if you touch its nose.

Prospekt Mira

Prospect Mira station of the Circle line was opened on January 30, 1952. It used to be called Botanical Garden up to June 20, 1966. The station’s decoration is devoted to development of agriculture in the USSR. Light marble and bas-reliefs by sculptor G. I. Motovilov decorate poles of the station. Famous smalt panel «Mothers of the World» by A. N. Kuznetsov is situated in the lobby.

Komsomolskaya

Komsomolskaya station was opened on January 30, 1952. The station has rich decoration devoted to a fight of USSR against overseas aggressors and victory in the Great Patriotic War. Mosaic panels from smalt and valuable stones, created according to sketches of the Lenin Award winner Pavel Corin, represent famous Russian commanders and weapons of different eras.

Novokuznetskaya

The station was opened on November 20, 1943. Its name was originally written through a hyphen: ‘Novo-Kuznetskaya’. The interior of the station is rich with decorating elements. The idea of creative force and power of Soviet people, its remarkable victories in the Great Patriotic War found realization in architectural design of station. The perimeter of the escalator arch is decorated with bronze sculptures by the sculptor N.V.Tomsky.

Novoslobodskaya

Novoslobodskaya station was opened on January 30, 1952. It was called after Novoslobodskaya street, where the station is situated. 32 original stained-glass windows from multi-colored glass, framed with steel and gilded brass and the famous mosaic panel «World peace», situated at the face wall the station, are made by sketches of Pavel Dmitriyevich Corin.

Dostoyevskaya

Dostoevskaya is comparatively new station, opened on June 19, 2010. It is situated at Suvorovskaya Square. Russian writer Fedor Dostoyevsky was born and lived in this district of Moscow. Therefore, the station bears his name and features scenes from his works «Crime and Punishment», «The Idiot», «Demons», «The Brothers Karamazov». Artist Ivan Nikolaev, the author of the decoration, said that depicting scenes of violence shows depth and tragedy of Dostoevsky’s work.

2. General information about Moscow metro

Metro working hours, navigation, wi-fi.

The Moscow Metro is open from about 5:30 am until 1:00 am. The precise opening time varies at different stations according to the arrival of the first train, but all stations simultaneously close their entrances and transitions to other lines at 01:00 am for maintenance. The minimum interval between trains is 90 seconds during the morning and evening rush hours. Each line is identified according to an alphanumeric index (usually consisting of a number), a name and a color. Voice announcements in Russian refer to the lines by name and by numbers in English. A male voice announces the next station when traveling towards the center of the city or the clockwise direction on the circle line, and a female voice – when going away from the center or the counter-clockwise direction at the circle. The lines are also assigned specific colors for maps and signs.

Free Wi-Fi is called MT_FREE and available on all 14 lines (inside the trains).

Using Metro services is frequently the fastest and the most efficient way to get from one part of the city to another. But during daytime Moscow Metro stations are usually overcrowded so if you want to just enjoy the beauty of the underground, it’s better to visit it late in the evening.

MCC and MCD

Since 2016 The Moscow Metro is connected to two new types of rail transport. The first one is MCC – Moscow Central Circle. It has 31 stations around the city with changes to metro stations (most of them require to walk a few minutes via the street). The second one is MCD, Moscow Central Diameters, a system of city train services on existing commuter rail lines in Moscow and Moscow Oblast. MCD has several lines, they’re being marked as D1, D2 etc. Changing to both MCC and MCD from the Metro is free when your journey is within the city. Both MCC and MCD lines exist on all of the Moscow Metro maps.

Interesting facts about Moscow metro

213 people were born in the metro during the World War II, when it was used as a bomb shelter.

There are 76 bronze sculptures of workers, peasants, soldiers, sailors, etc. at Ploshchad Revolyutsii station. There is legend connected with this station. To pass any examination successfully, a student should touch the bronze dog’s nose («the Frontier Guard with a Dog» sculpture). You can easily understand high popularity of this legend by looking at the polished nose of the dog.

It is said that some of the magnificent mosaics at several central stations, for example the «World Peace» mosaic at Novoslobodskaya, were made with the pieces of enamel and smalt, taken from the famous Christ the Savior Cathedral, before it’s destruction.

As any other dungeon the Moscow metro, has its own ghosts. The most famous one is the old lineman. He is not dangerous and usually hides into the wall, when people appear. The ghostly metro train is much more dangerous. It appears after midnight at the Circle Line and consists of old-time carriages. It sometimes stops at the stations and opens its doors, and then goes back into the darkness. It is said that the souls of Stalin’s prisoners, perished during the building of the metro are locked in the train forever.

3. Moscow Metro tickets

1 or 2 trips.

You can buy tickets in ticket offices or in automatic ticket machines. Passes for 1 or 2 trips are the most expensive. They sold only in ATM and cost 55 and 110 rubles (€0.55 and €1.10) respectively.

More than 2 trips

All the other kinds of tickets are available in the ticket offices. Tickets for bigger amount of trips are more profitable.

«90 Minutes» ticket

A ticket «90 minutes» is valid for one trip on the metro and an unlimited number of trips on surface transport within this time. It costs 65 rub (€0.65).

The «Troyka» card

You can also use «Troyka» – refillable card to pay for travelling on all kinds of public transport – metro, buses, trolley-buses, trams, monorail and blue minibuses. With «Troyka» one trip costs 35 rub (€0.35).

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