Big Pit: National Coal Museum

Big Pit: National Coal Museum
Blaenafon
Torfaen
NP4 9XP
Wales

Website

www.museumwales.ac.uk

E-mail

bigpit@museumwales.ac.uk

Telephone

(01495) 790 311

Fax

(01495) 792 618

All information is supplied by the venues or providers themselves and every effort is made to ensure it is correct. Please remember to double check opening hours with the venue concerned before making a special visit.

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.

Venue Type:

Museum

Opening hours

February-November
Daily 10.00-15.30
Please telephone for details of winter opening

Closed: Please telephone for details

Admission charges

FREE

General services and facilities

Brochure or leaflet available with directions to museum
Foreign language leaflet or brochure available
General audio-guide available
Guided tours
Pre-booking service for groups
Cafeteria
Refreshments
Restaurant
Shop

Disability access

Toilets for disabled
Wheelchair access to all public areas
Wheelchairs available for loan

Schools services and facilities

Member of staff available with responsibility for education
Primary school education service available
Printed/audio-visual information available for schools
Secondary school education service available
Education facilities available
Reception and lunch facilities for educational groups

Research and adult learning

Teaching/resources available for HE/FE students
Research facilities for academics

Commercial and hire services

Facilities for private functions and events

Additional info

Tours take approximately 1 hour.
You will need warm clothing and sensible footwear.
Wheelchairs can go underground (please book).

Big Pit: National Coal Museum
Blaenafon
Torfaen
NP4 9XP
Wales

Website

www.museumwales.ac.uk

E-mail

bigpit@museumwales.ac.uk

Telephone

(01495) 790 311

Fax

(01495) 792 618

Collection details

Archives, Industry, Science and Technology, Social History

Key artists and exhibits

Mining
Coal mining
Industrial history
Pithead baths
Engineering
Mine shaft

Collections services

Object identification and/or written enquiry service

Big Pit: National Coal Museum
Blaenafon
Torfaen
NP4 9XP
Wales

Website

www.museumwales.ac.uk

E-mail

bigpit@museumwales.ac.uk

Telephone

(01495) 790 311

Fax

(01495) 792 618

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