Glengowla Mines
Oughterard
Co. Galway
Eire

Lead mine worked 1850-65
Underground tour, reconstructed surface features e.g. whim, shop, museum
Open March-November, 10.00am-6.00pm
tel 091 552360, eimail [email protected]

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Over here in Ireland is also the following:

Arigna Mining Experience, Co. Roscommon:
This Energy Centre provides visitors with a unique insight into what coal mining life was like in the Arigna Valley, since its beginning in the 1700's until closure in 1990.
http://www.arignaminingexperience.ie/ 

In the UK:

LLywernog Silver-Lead Mine, Wales
Close to Aberystwyth, this 18th Century silver-lead mine was saved from dereliction in 1973 . Guided tours with expert knowledge.
http://www.silverminetours.co.uk/ 

Sygun Copper Mine, Wales
Underground tour at this mine in the heart of Snowdonia National Park
http://www.syguncoppermine.co.uk/ 

Poldark Mine, Wendron, Cornwall
Undergound tour into the C18th workings of tin mine, Wheal Roots
http://www.poldark-mine.co.uk/ 

Rosevale Mine, Cornwall
Rosevale Mine is a privately owned former tin mine situated at Zennor, near St Ives in West Cornwall. For the past 30 years the underground workings have been restored and preserved as a typical Cornish mine.
http://www.rosevalemine.co.uk/ 

Morwellham Quay, Devon, England
http://www.morwellham-quay.co.uk/ 

King Edward Mine, Cornwall
King Edward Mine is the oldest complete mine site left in Cornwall and is situated in the World Heritage Area. All the buildings are Grade II* Listed and are of national importance.
http://www.kingedwardmine.co.uk/ 

Great Orme Copper Mines Wales
The highlight of the tour is the amazing Bronze Age Cavern, dug out over 3,500 years ago by miners using nothing more than bone and stone tools.
http://www.gomines.co.uk/index.htm 

Will think of more shortly 🙂

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Wheal Martyn China Clay museum.
Carthew
St. Austell
Cornwall
PL26 8SG

01726 850362
Website http://www.wheal-martyn.com/ 
Museum of the china clay extraction industry. Large collection of artefacts and a working water wheel and link rods.

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Blue Hills Tin Streams
Trevellas Coombe
St.Agnes
Cornwall TR5 OYW

Colin & Mark Wills
01872 553341

The Wills family have been streaming and smelting tin at Blue Hills since 1975 producing many tons of tin ore. Generations of the family have worked in mines around St.Agnes and many other countries throughout the world.

It is now possible to see this fascinating process on a tour of the works.

Website http://www.chycor.co.uk/tourism/bluehills/ 

alternate websitehttp://www.cornwall-calling.co.uk/mines/st-agnes/blue_hills_tin_streamers.htm  with photographs.

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Ironbridge Gorge Museum

01952 884391

Weblink
http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/ 

Where to start? This museum is probably the museum for industrial and social history. It is located over several sites in the area surrounding the town of Ironbridge which is now part of Telford. Items specifically related to mining are a small mine headgear and steam powered lifting engine. A new (artificial) level into a coal mine (both of these at the Blist's Hill site) and the Tar Tunnel a (genuine) level dug to provide access to clay deposits which struck naturally occuring bitumen. Visitors can enter the first 100 yards of the tunnel.

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Last one from me (I think !)

Grime's Graves

Address:
Norfolk - IP26 5DE
01842 810656
Website http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.12454 

Grime's Graves is the only Neolithic flint mine open to visitors in Britain. A grassy lunar landscape of over 400 shafts, pits, quarries and spoil dumps.

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Again, thanks everybody for the submissions to date with this.

Next weekend (2/3 May) I'll compile all received so far into a web page. Obviously that web page will be updated with any more submitted after that date.

:flowers:

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Yorkshire Dales Mining Museum
Old Grammer School
School Lane
Earby
Barnoldswick
Lancs
BB8 6QF

01282 841422

largest collection of mining relics in the world.collection of minerals. tea room

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Big Pit Mining Museum
Blaenafon
Torfaen
South Wales
NP4 9XP

descend 300ft underground. Cafe and Welsh Crafts

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This museum has recently been renovated. I must admit though, I prefer the 'old version' better...

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Seeing the mention of
Big Pit ( The Welsh National museum of the coal industry) reminded me, we haven't put in an entry for Llanberis, the Welsh National slate museum!
So Welsh National Slate Museum
Llanberis, Gwynedd
LL55 4TY
01286 870 630

website http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/slate/ 

"Now, with imaginative interpretation, the remarkable relics of the slate industry can be understood and enjoyed by the many thousands of visitors to this stunning countryside on the flanks of Snowdon".
And, thanks to the Welsh Assembly, like all of the Welsh national museums entry is free ! A good family day out.

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This page is live now: http://www.aditnow.co.uk/static/mining-mine-history-museums.aspx 

Hope I got ever museum in the right area. If not please let me know and I'll move them.

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We've had this conversation before Simon but isn't it inconsistent to list the Forest of Dean entries as 'Midlands' when we group it as 'SW England' for all other purposes?

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.....Also I think we missed an imprtant entry for 'South Wales'

Dolaucothi Gold Mines
Pumsaint, Llanwrda, Carmarthenshire SA19 8US
Telephone: 01558 825146 (Infoline)

Website http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-dolaucothigoldmines 

Gold mines in use from Roman times to the 20th century

* Unique Roman gold mine set amid wooded hillsides
* Guided tours of the underground workings and exhibition on gold

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Scotland looks a bit bare perhaps we could add Prestongrange.

Prestongrange Museum
Morrison's Haven
Prestonpans
East Lothian
01620 828203

Prestongrange is a site of major importance in the story of Scotland's Industrial Revolution. It was the location of a sixteenth century harbour, a seventeenth century glass works, eighteenth and nineteenth century potteries and a nineteenth/twentieth century coal mine and brick works. Remnants of these former industries can still be seen, and many of the structures are still intact including the rare Hoffman Kiln and the Cornish Beam Engine, unique in Scotland.

http://prestongrange.org/site/ 

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Simon - Can you please move the reference to the Peak District Mines Historical Society's museum at Matlock Bath, Derbyshire from the North West section of the Museum List Project to the Midlands Section, being as Derbyshire is in the Midlands region.

The website for the Museum is:

www.peakmines.co.uk

In addition to visiting the museum there is also the small Temple Mine just across the road, which is also run by PDMHS, a joint entrance fee for both the Museum and Mine is charged, or one can just visit the Museum. Incidently the Fish Pond by the Pavillion (not the pub of the same name opposite!) is fed by a warm thermal spring for which Matlock Bath is famous.

Many thanks.

Geevor Tin Mine - The Largest Preserved Mining Site in the UK.
Pendeen
Penzance
Cornwall
TR19 7EW

Cornish Mines and Engines - preserved winding and pumping engines and visitor centre
Pool
nr. Redruth
Cornwall
TR15 3NP

Thanks for the feedback, have made all the changes in the various posts above and uploaded the page again.

I think the best thing is if I edit the page perhaps once a month, making any changes and additions requested since the last update.

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http://www.rhonddaheritagepark.com/ 

Museum Name:-
Beamish

Address:-
Beamish Museum, Beamish, County Durham, DH9 0RG

Telephone:-
0191 370 4000

Web address
http://www.beamish.org.uk 

Brief Description (Plagiarized from their www pages):-

A 300 acre site with several mining related items.

The Colliery Village is built around a recreation of a typical North Eastern pit in the early 1900s. The pit cottages, from Francis Street, Hetton-le-Hole, show how miners and their families lived. A fascinating Colliery Lamp Cabin opened in March this year. On view in the adjacent exhibition are many of the museum's important collection of safety lamps alongside mines rescue equipment and mining tools dating from the mid 18th century up to late 20th century. In the Colliery Yard nearby is the entrance to the Mahogany Drift Mine, which is original to the museum site. This mine opened in 1855 and was worked for 103 years, before closing in 1958. Visitors can don a hard hat and take a guided tour underground to see how coal was worked and to experience something of the working conditions in the early 1900s. The Colliery Heapstead building was collected by Beamish in 1974 and re-erected at the Museum. Here the cages were drawn up from the shaft beneath. Coal tubs were pulled clear, weighed and recorded, before the coal was tipped onto the screens, sorted and loaded into chauldron wagons below. The cages were also used to carry men and ponies to and from the mine below.The tall stone engine house came from Beamish 2nd Pit. The magnificent vertical winding engine inside, built in 1855 in Newcastle upon Tyne, is the sole survivor of a type once common in the North East and operates daily in the summer season.

Alongside agriculture is a recreation of an 1820s Colliery and a Wooden Waggonway, representative of the technology of the very earliest railways in the region, used to carry coal to the rivers from the expanding collieries. The Horse Gin is a working replica of a small colliery of the late 1700s/early 1800s. The wooden waggonway is based on archaeological evidence excavated locally at Lambton.

This operating railway gives visitors a flavour of rail travel in the early 1800s as it cuts through the Georgian landscape in the valley below Pockerley Manor. One of three working replica locomotives hauls passengers on a one kilometre trip in recreated carriages from the period.

The 1815 Steam Elephant was built for Wallsend Colliery by William Chapman and John Buddle. Neither the engine itself nor the original drawings for Steam Elephant survived and the construction of the replica for Beamish was based on a remarkable series of sketches and exhaustive researches by Museum staff.

George Stephenson’s Locomotion No. 1 was built in 1825, the replica had its first public steaming at Beamish in 1975, 150 years after the original was unveiled on the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

The most recent addition to the collection is a replica of Puffing Billy, built in 1813 by William Hedley to haul coal from Wylam Colliery to the River Tyne. This is one on the world’s oldest surviving locomotives, the original is now on display in the Science Museum in London.

The Great Shed, where these locomotives are housed, is based upon the lost buildings of Timothy Hackworth’s works at Shildon. Incorporated in the structure is original ironwork from George Stephenson’s Forth Banks works in Newcastle. On display here are genuine artefacts from the period including an original Stockton and Darlington Railway passenger carriage (on loan from NRM).

And much more - I've only mentioned the mining related bits - takes whole day to go round.

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Here are some more suggestions which might pass muster.

Astley Green Colliery Museum,
Higher Green Lane,
Astley Green,
Tyldesley,
Manchester.
M29 7JB

Includes collection of 28 colliery locomotives

Opening Times:
Sunday: 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm
Tuesday: 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm
Thursday: 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm
Closed:
Christmas Day and Boxing Day

http://www.agcm.org.uk/ 
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Rather than favour one over another some mention I think must be made to Castleton. Perhaps..................

Mines & Show Caves of Castleton, Peak District, Derbyshire.
http://peakdistrict.nationaltrust.org.uk/odin-mine 
Originally a lead mining area, unique banded gem stone deposits were found known locally as Blue John.
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High Rake Lead Mine. Windmill, Nr Great Hucklow, Derbyshire.
Surface workings archaeologically restored site by PDMHS. Information boards, free access. Further information can be found on the PDMHS web site.
http://www.pdmhs.com/HighRake.asp 
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The Salt Museum,
162 London Road, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 8AB

This is about the only public archive covering the extraction of salt by both mining and solvent means in the UK.
http://www.saltmuseum.org.uk 
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Honister Slate Mine, Cumbria

http://www.honister-slate-mine.co.uk/ 
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The Threlkeld Quarry & Mining Museum, Nr Keswick.

http://www.threlkeldminingmuseum.co.uk/ 
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Feel free to edit & discard.
Peter.

PS Nearly forgot this one, a bit tenuous but it does have a permanent display.

Anson Engine Museum, Higher Poynton SK12 1TD. The museum itself is housed in the the redundant Anson Colliery. There is a display, including a 3D model of the Poynton Colliery workings.

http://www.enginemuseum.org/ 

a list anyone can copy/update
http://www.strahlen.org/musea/ 

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