Just learnt that Mining Museum at Haig Colliery has closed.

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/shock-closure-of-2-4m-cumbrian-mining-museum-1.1232611 

:thumbdown:

Very sad news!


I suspect that unfortunately it will not be the last one to close.:(

lets hope that it gets help and opens back up it's a shame that all the history before long will be lost and people in the uk will not no what a mine was let alone what a miner was

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lets hope that it gets help and opens back up it's a shame that all the history before long will be lost and people in the uk will not no what a mine was let alone what a miner was

I have often felt that there is now a danger that our mining heritage will be lost. There seems to be no interest in it among people i;ve ramdomly mentioned it to at work, or just general conversation outside this forum.

To illustrate, one person I talked to had no idea that there had been mining disasters in this country in the past. This should be part of general knowlege or education shoudn't it?: - Such events tend to be remembered in the communities in which they happened, but it seems not so much nationally. If museums contiinue to close, with time, even local memory will likely fade. Such disasters are a sad fact of history and should never be forgotten.

I feel strongly about this as many family members, especially on my dad's side, worked in the South Wales coal mines (maybe possibly North Wales as well) and I'm still trying to find out more details as there's alot that I don't know)

I am involved in a mine dig in the southeast and I find quite alot of either disinterest or negetive comments about this pastime, not because of the mine disasters, which I;ve established, they know nothing about, just the uneasy feeling many people have about activities that are "not mainstream" This is how far so many of us have come from the "underground heritage" much of this country once had. so now I say little about the dig to "non-underground" people.
:(

Although I did mention mining the other day, and the conversation was quickly changed 😠

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Oddly I get a completely different reaction, this may of course be because I am in Durham. Not that there wasn't mining down south, maybe they've got less appreciation of the 'dirty' industries. :devil:
People can be depressingly ignorant about just about everything outside of the bread and circuses of social media, 'celebrities' and 'talent' TV shows.

I do get a fairly high level of 'I couldn't do that' comments but that is more the being underground than in a mine.

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Concur entirely with Nick. Most people I talk to are fascinated by the notion of someone going willingly underground without being paid, some even want to go see for themselves.

My favourite reaction is "Don't you get claustrophobic?" ::)

The best ever was my Mum after I returned from my very first Thursday-nighter with DDMS "Well, I didn't think you'd be down there in the dark!" :flowers:

If I ever buy golf clubs, shoot me!

MARK

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Not the case with Cornish mining, people are quite aware of that, however they cant get past the engine houses and pick and shovel image, they mostly wouldnt believe it if you told them Wheal Jane was using remote controlled LHD's in the late 80's! but a lot of the blame can be laid on the heritage committees down here for cultivating the image, which in my opinion may have been done to distance people from the industry and make sure people think its 'done and dusted', prevent any ideas of a resurgence.

Not the case with Cornish mining, people are quite aware of that, however they cant get past the engine houses and pick and shovel image, they mostly wouldnt believe it if you told them Wheal Jane was using remote controlled LHD's in the late 80's! but a lot of the blame can be laid on the heritage committees down here for cultivating the image, which in my opinion may have been done to distance people from the industry and make sure people think its 'done and dusted', prevent any ideas of a resurgence.

Welcome to the pastyland theme park!

A lot of people I speak to are actually quite interested and didn't realise just how much mining went on in North Wales. Many thanks can be given to the forestry commision of the 70s for their "If it aint a tree, it aint fer me" policy over mining remains.

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Welcome to the pastyland theme park!

Bit late, I've been in it since 2006! :lol:

I think its mainly coal that gets buried (literally), plenty of people in North Somerset who have no clue about the coal mining there

A lot of people I speak to are actually quite interested and didn't realise just how much mining went on in North Wales. Many thanks can be given to the forestry commision of the 70s for their "If it aint a tree, it aint fer me" policy over mining remains.

yeah we had a bit of that on Exmoor as well!

If museums contiinue to close, with time, even local memory will likely fade. Such disasters are a sad fact of history and should never be forgotten.

The area of the south Wales coalfield where I live began to decline in the 1870s and large scale mining ceased in the 1930s, with the last small mine closing in the early 1970s - although a couple of large NCB pits existed within ten miles until the 1980s. I find that people much younger than me (wrong side of 50!), who never saw those local(-ish) NCB pits working tend to have no conception that they live on a coalfield, much less that mining occurred locally.

I figure that two generations beyond the last mine closures is sufficient for any widespread and in-depth awareness of an area's mining history to be lost - at least as far as such knowledge being a commonplace thing.

I remember ten to fifteen years ago the guides at Big Pit Blaenafon saying that they had to show school groups from the south Wales coalfield what coal looked like and to explain what it was used for. Mining and industrial museums can no longer take for granted that even local visitors will have any background knowledge of the relevant industries. As a result, museums have to explain the very basics such as what coal or steel etc. is and what it is used for. So next time you thing that an industrial or mining museum has dumbed down its displays, remember that they are catering for the lack of knowledge of the average visitor, and that very likely you (and fellow aditnow members) know a great deal more than the average industrial museum visitor.

The current trend of moving museums and libraries, previously funded by local authorities, to trust status risks in many cases guaranteeing them a slow death as maintenance backlog costs build-up. Funding from sources such as the Heritage Lottery Fund is only available for capital projects, not to support revenue costs. Sadly, we are likely to see many more museum closures in the next five to ten years. Industrial and mining museums may be over-represented in the closures, as their operating costs are often higher than conventional local museums.

If museums contiinue to close, with time, even local memory will likely fade. Such disasters are a sad fact of history and should never be forgotten.

The area of the south Wales coalfield where I live began to decline in the 1870s and large scale mining ceased in the 1930s, with the last small mine closing in the early 1970s - although a couple of large NCB pits existed within ten miles until the 1980s. I find that people much younger than me (wrong side of 50!), who never saw those local(-ish) NCB pits working tend to have no conception that they live on a coalfield, much less that mining occurred locally.

I figure that two generations beyond the last mine closures is sufficient for any widespread and in-depth awareness of an area's mining history to be lost - at least as far as such knowledge being a commonplace thing.

I remember ten to fifteen years ago the guides at Big Pit Blaenafon saying that they had to show school groups from the south Wales coalfield what coal looked like and to explain what it was used for. Mining and industrial museums can no longer take for granted that even local visitors will have any background knowledge of the relevant industries. As a result, museums have to explain the very basics such as what coal or steel etc. is and what it is used for. So next time you thing that an industrial or mining museum has dumbed down its displays, remember that they are catering for the lack of knowledge of the average visitor, and that very likely you (and fellow aditnow members) know a great deal more than the average industrial museum visitor.

The current trend of moving museums and libraries, previously funded by local authorities, to trust status risks in many cases guaranteeing them a slow death as maintenance backlog costs build-up. Funding from sources such as the Heritage Lottery Fund is only available for capital projects, not to support revenue costs. Sadly, we are likely to see many more museum closures in the next five to ten years. Industrial and mining museums may be over-represented in the closures, as their operating costs are often higher than conventional local museums.

Having worked in the mining heritage sector for over twenty years I would say that this hits the nail very precisely on the head.

Another big problem facing mining history museums and groups is age.
I know well in North Wales there are people passionate about their mining history and passing it on. The problem is that they are all quite old (ex-miners) and are sadly getting less in number each year.
Places like Big Pit benefit from the experience of being shown around by ex-miners. Training youths from the job center to recite history will not work.
This also seems to be the fate of some mining history organizations with a lack of younger people coming along to take over. 😞

I think most people I speak to about mines are generally interested and have some knowledge. Quite often people express an interest in coming along. I used to quite often bring people as guests on club trips but don't tend to any more as no-one really joined the club or came more than a couple of times.

Youngsters not knowing what coal is - kind of on the same theme as the often mentioned lack of knowledge about farming and where food comes from.

What I find more worrying is the amount of time I am asked 'are you really allowed to do that yourself?' not only about mine exploring but about things that a while ago would have been commonplace such as servicing your own car, doing your own building work etc. We seem to be moving from assuming things are OK to assuming anything out of the ordinary is either not allowed or requires some sort of official authorisation :confused:

To be honest servicing your own car these days seems to need quite a lot of fancy electrickery equipment which I personally would rather not spend money on when I can spend it on underground stuff, guitar stuff, bike stuff and of course beer
??

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Whether mining museums get the thumbs up or not from significant numbers of visitors probably depends on just one or two key features.

1. Is there something significant to visit underground?

2. Are there trains?

Being somewhere that people go helps...
The mining museum is Keswick often had very quiet days and Whitehaven just doesn't have the same visitor footfall.
This is partly why the NMCS decided not to reopen the museum at Nenthead when we were reviewing what we could and couldn't do. Unfortunately the Nent is further off the beaten track than Whitehaven, not to mention significant competition nearby at Killhope.
The artefacts are still there of course, they are just laid out more informally to be perused on open days.

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A little off topic, but museum related, the Armley Mills Industrial Museum in Leeds is closed until further notice after the Boxing Day floods.

The fine piles of rusting bits will presumably be even more rusty, if they haven't been washed away entirely that is.

The museum has a marker on the wall showing the level of the infamous 1866 flood, and the Boxing Day floods were a metre higher than that. Don't know what has been lost.

Whether mining museums get the thumbs up or not from significant numbers of visitors probably depends on just one or two key features.

1. Is there something significant to visit underground?

2. Are there trains?

......and there lies the problem with Haig. The previous operators, Haig Pit Restoration Group, had a vision of running a railway and providing a simulated u/g tour. Track was acquired, locos were being restored, and the former Seaham training face (arches, sheeting, gate end boxes, AFC, chocks, etc) was donated by Woodhorn. Then, in 2003, the committee acquired themselves criminal convictions for H &S offences and had to resign. The new board of trustees (business, finance and tourism "experts"), with no mining experience or knowledge, and dare I say it .....interest, as one of their first actions condemned the track and arches as scrap (because "it was rusty") and sold them as such to help with costs. A bit like starting, say, a joinery business and selling all your tools to pay the workshop electric bill.

Since then a visitor centre - which, because of the funding source, seems to show how grateful we should be for no longer having to toil in muck and danger when electricity can be provided by much safer and greener nuclear (Sellafield down the coast) and wind (visible at Robin Rigg just outside) has been built. A plastic, sanitised, interpretation of what non-miners think we got up to (parading banners, whippet and pigeon racing, when not striking or being blown to kingdom come) is now available in the refurbished engine houses, but not much on technology or geology (a displayed coal measures plant fossil is, believe it or not, labelled as "at least one million years old":lol:)

Last year I was shown some correspondence by someone wanting the simplest of mining information from them - three shaft locations - with which they "could not help" as "we are not, and never have been, a research organisation". I took him to the site of two, less than a half mile from the museum, and showed him on plan the other - less than 200yds from the museum - and, yes, the museum does have plans, several in fact, showing all three of them.

Yes, they do have problems, some financial as stated in the article, but the bigger ones seem to be justifying the description of themselves as a mining museum. More needs to be done than providing cash o continue as before.