Donning hard hat, lamp and compulsory miner’s belt you can descend 283ft (86m) to the pit floor to experience one of the most fascinating guided tours you are ever likely to take, and as Big Pit Colliery is part of the National Museum of Wales, this remarkable opportunity is FREE.
Big Pit Colliery lies in the north-eastern corner of the South Wales coalfield in the Afon Lwyd Valley where the coal seam outcrops on both sides of the valley from Blaenavon to Cwmbran.
Big Pit is a real coal mine and one of the UK’s leading mining museums. With facilities to educate and entertain all ages, Big Pit guarantees an exciting and informative day out.
Going underground...
Kitted out in helmet, cap-lamp and battery pack, you descend 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.
On the surface...
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.