Woolly says – With British summer underway we had decided to head to a mainly inside destination to avoid the rain, of course you won’t be surprised to know that as we set out the sky was a lovely blue with white fluffy clouds speeding across the skies.
We were heading into the Welsh Valleys, the land of beauty that had seen whole communities lost in the early 80’s when the government decided to close many mines in the area, a decision that made no sense as Wales was the cheapest producer of coal in Europe at the time and was known for having the best coal.
As the car sped along the dual carriageway, I told my small friend about the 3 day week and power cuts that we had lived through at the time and how the unions had ruled the workforces across the country, as well as the most mentioned name at the time, Arthur Scargill.
Woolly says – It didn’t sound great although Jo did mention that they had fish and chips from the shop sometimes to save cooking on a camping stove which didn’t sound bad at all. Arriving in the town of Blaenavon we spotted the brown tourist signs which led us straight to Big Pit.
Big Pit National Coal Museum is an industrial heritage museum in Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales. A working coal mine from 1880 to 1980, it was opened to the public in 1983 as a charitable trust.
Originally an iron mine, driven into the side of the mountain not far from the surface due to the shallow iron deposits, the coal workings were established in the first half of the nineteenth century by the Blaenavon Iron and Coal Company as part of the development of the Blaenavon Ironworks. A mines inspector report of 1881 was the first to use the name Big Pit, not due to its massive size, although it is quite bit, but due to its elliptical shape with dimensions of 18 feet (5.5 m) by 13 feet (4.0 m) of its shaft, the first shaft in Wales large enough to allow two tramways.
Having parked and admired the landscape we headed inside and having done all the transactions required I gripped onto my ticket and followed the humans through a corridor until we arrived at the top of the shaft. A lovely lady called Emma, introduced herself as our guide before taking every item off us that required a battery or naked flame to work, my face dropped as this of course meant no photographs but Jo rather than getting awkward about the situation happily handed everything over and proceeded to be fitted with a helmet, safety belt complete with gas mask and a head torch.
Along with more humans we squeezed into the cage and disappeared into the black hole of Big Pit 293 feet (89 metres) below. Arriving at the bottom my trunk could smell the thick coal dust in the air, with our headtorches we could see sparkles of coal in the walls alongside the wooden struts that held the mine up. Emma our guide started to tell us more about the mine and the working practices including the fact that children as young as four would have worked as door openers for the women bringing the coal through from the men who were digging for it. Women and children were banned from mine work in the mid eighteen hundreds and the wonderful Emma was in fact the first women to have been employed undergrown since this law came into force.
As we walked along the tracks it got colder and colder as we got nearer to the ventilation shaft at which point we arrived at the horse station where Emma’s Great Granddad had once looked after the pit ponies. Over 50 stalls lay vacant with the only reminder being the names of the horses above each stall. She told us how 4 million gallons of water was pumped out of the mine every day along a vast network of pipework and how maintenance checks were carried out every single day to prevent accidents and any explosions happening. As we arrived back in the sunshine my human and I both agreed that it was a shame we hadn’t been able to take any pictures, but the tour had been brilliant.
All manner of trucks and machinery were displayed as we wandered towards the Winding House,
taking a moment to stop in the Lamp Room we met the canaries that still live on site. In 1906, canaries were used by a rescue team to enter a mine in the aftermath of an explosion, the canary was described as most useful and, in some instances, they were produced as evidence during investigations of industrial accidents. By 1911, regulations insisted that miners should “use ‘two small caged birds’ each time they went down a mine”, this practice continued until as late as 1996 when British legislation officially ordered miners to replace canaries with electronic carbon monoxide sensors. Leaving them to their tweeting we admired the rows of safety lamps that were kept charged at all times before arriving at the winding house.
Pictures taken from many different mines covered the walls behind the large machinery that takes the cage in and out of the pit. Just outside I spotted a mammoth sized train and raced over to take a better look.
Following the signs we climbed the steps to the higher level of the site, a lovely bench allowed us to sit for a while enjoying the Brecon Beacons, when the mine had been active our chances of seeing anything other than smoke would have been unlikely.
More random machines and objects lay abandoned around us as we poked our noses into the former Explosives room where the dynamite for blowing the seams of coal open would have been stored.
A large building came next, the Pit Head Baths had been built in 1939 and had greatly improved the miner’s life allowing them to not only wash away the coal dust but to get medical treatment as well. We followed the route that the men had once taken, first into the boot greasing room where the heavy industrial footwear was cleaned off.
Next came handwashing and drinking water outlets, closely followed by hundreds of rows of lockers.
Some of the lockers held items and gave us information about the person who had once held the key for that cupboard.
The shower area was huge with both communal and separate showers for the miners to clean up, the floors must have been grey from the debris coming off the men when in use.
The next room held large glass fronted exhibitions detailing the life of the miner and their families, from snuff tins to lamps and from safety wear to celebration of life, medals won and tools used.
The last part told us of the riots and strikes that had been the beginning of the end of the industry, a large piece of wall gave the name of every coal mine that had once existed in Wales, the list was humongous and there were far more than either Jo or I had realised. All those jobs now gone, Big Pit had officially closed in 1980 and by 1982 there was little left of the world of coal mining.
Heading over to the Fan House we looked at the different fans that had been used to keep the air clean far below our feet.
A short walk down a bank led us into the King Coal mining experience where we watched a video all about the mine before heading into what had once been an entrance to one of the drift mines.
Inside we were treated to a talk about the machinery that had replaced the pick and shovel taking metres of the mine out at a time instead of a mere spade full.
Like Big Pit below our feet the ceilings were lined with wood and rails ran along the walls to enable to trains to move the excavations to the surface.
Wandering back to the main area we stopped in at the blacksmiths forge to admire the furnaces that would have provided not only the horses shoes but tools and machines to enable to miners to work. With tired paws and feet not to mention the grumbling tummies we headed into the café for a much deserved drink and toasted tea cake to set us up for the drive back.