National Coal Mining Museum

To discover the depths descend 140 metres underground down one of Britain's oldest working mines. Your guide will take you around the workings, sharing his mining experiences with you. The tour lasts approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. Each visitor is provided with a hat, belt and battery, so that the true atmosphere of working life underground is captured.

The last underground tour daily is at 3.15pm; simply book in at Reception on arrival.

Children under 5 years of age are not permitted on the underground tour. Children under the age of 14 must be accompanied by an adult. There should be at least one supervisory adult for every group of 10 children.

Please note, during school holiday periods it is advisable to arrive early, as the underground tour can be fully booked by midday.

Hope Pit

For some mind-boggling science, visit Hope Pit, a fully restored colliery complex on the 17 hectare Museum site, totally dedicated to science. Discover hands-on interactive models, touch screen displays and some very special virtual guides.

Hope Pit is open every day until 4.00pm and Hope Store, where a lot of the large machinery is kept, can be accessed during school holidays 12.30 until 4.00pm (Tuesdays and Thursdays).
From Hope Pit wander down to our settling ponds to see how water pumped out of the mine is filtered to remove impurities, then take a walk around the Nature Trail and see what wildlife you can spot along the way.

Museum Exhibitions

The Museum is home to original colliery buildings, some of which are over 130 years old. Marvel at the original pithead and see our 1876 steam winder. Visit the pithead baths to see where the miners cleaned up at the end of a shift and the newly restored medical centre, to see how injuries were treated.

The Coal Interface Gallery allows you to see how machinery was used to hew the coal. Visit Mining Lives to find out more about a miner's home and leisure life.

You can access the Museum's collections online with pictures and descriptions of some of the items in the collections, many of which are not on display in the galleries.

The collections are divided into different sections (industrial, social history, oral history and art and photography), each has a description of what is included in this section and why it is important that we collect these types of items.

You can access the library pages, which include what we do and how you can use the Library. You can also search the library catalogue and see what we have in the library online

Please head to Reception to pick up a ticket. Admission to the site and underground tour is free, tours run every 10 minutes from 10.00am until 3.15pm and you do need a ticket to be onsite. The team will give you a map and let you know if there are any special events taking place.

The age limit for children to go underground is 5 and above. A 'Mini Miners' indoor play area is waiting to be discovered for those who are not yet old enough to go underground.

We recommend a minimum of 3 hours for your visit, but you could easily spend the whole day here at the Museum.