Big Pit National Mining Museum
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Big Pit is a real coal mine and one of Britain's leading mining museums. With facilities to educate and entertain all ages, Big Pit is an exciting and informative day out. Enjoy a multi-media tour of a modern coal mine with a virtual miner in the Mining Galleries, exhibitions in the Pithead Baths and Historic colliery buildings open to the public for the first time. All this AND the world-famous Underground Tour. Go 300 feet underground with a real miner and see what life was like for the thousands of men who worked at the coal face. Big Pit became part of Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales on 1 February 2001. After major redevelopment, it re-opened in 2004 and went straight on to win the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year. The redevelopment turned the original features, like the Pithead Baths, into fresh displays that bring life at the coalface vividly into focus. However, perhaps its most famous feature is still the trip 90 metres down the shaft to explore working conditions underground. An award-winning national museum that still retains many traits of its former role as a coal mine, standing high on the heather-clad moors of Blaenafon, the tunnels and buildings that once echoed to the sound of the miners now enjoy the sound of the footsteps and chatter of visitors from all over the world. Open daily 9.30am-5pm. Last admission 4pm. Underground Tours 10am-3.30pm. | |||||||||||||||||||||||