One of my greatest joys is to visit a museum – ANY museum – not just for the objects being conserved and displayed, but for the way in which they are presented to visitors and the educational aims being fulfilled. In other words, when I visit a museum, I automatically see it through the eyes of a long-time museum professional, and this can colour my reactions to the site/collection.
The Big Pit (Pwll Mawr) at Blaeafon (‘the head of the river’) in Gwent, South Wales is the National Coal Museum of Wales (Amgueddfa Lafaol Cymru). The headstocks which you can see (originally in wood, replaced with structural steel), along with the winding engine in the winding house, and the colliery buildings are stark reminders of the price paid for coal – in the blood of miners. This pit closed in 1980, and is now a ‘living museum’, in that you can actually descend 300ft into the mine to view the former workings, in the company of an experienced miner/guide. You guide will take you through the process of getting ready to go 'down the pit', and will stop at various points to explain how a pit prop is 'set' to hold the roof up, how coal is extracted from the seam, how it is moved through the mine to the surface, etc. The 50 minute guided tour includes the Lamp Room, the Stables (for the pit ponies) and the Pithead Baths! The Big Pit was so named because it was forever seeking out new seams and pushing out fresh tunnels. This coalmine came to dominate the area - underground, that is.
A visit to the Big Pit is an experience which is nothing short of breath-taking; I was incredibly moved, not just as a museum professional, but as the son of a coal miner, and as someone who lost a relative in one of the very last colliery disasters in the UK. Mining of deep coal seams no longer takes place in Wales, although 'open-cast' extractive methods still take place in some areas. The whole area around the 'Big Pit' has been declared a World Heritage Site by the UN, and the designation is well-merited.
If you do visit, particularly in this, the Big Pit's 30th Anniversary Year, remember to have a meal in the modern cafeteria – try the cawl, it really is delicious! (Cawl is a Welsh stew…usually with mutton or lamb, although in this case, Pwll Mawr’s cawl is made with beef)
Yet another candidate for the bucket list!
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