Blaenavon's Big Pit -preserving the Welsh coal mining story

“The Big Pit” refers to the main shaft of the mine at Torfaen. Dug in 1860, the oblong tunnel is 18x13 ft. and was sunk 200 feet deep at first, and then a further 100 feet in 1880.

Many mines in the Blaenavon area, were initially used for the gathering of ironstone rather than coal, in order to support the local ironworks. Coal was also mined at Blaenavon to meet a local demand but it was not until the late nineteenth century that the reign of ‘King Coal’ came to south Wales. By the late nineteenth century the significance of Welsh steel and iron-making was on the wane but a growing demand existed for Welsh coal to fuel locomotives, steam ships, factories and houses. Many Welsh towns, including Blaenavon, specialised on the production of coal in order to take advantage of the high demand.

The South Wales Coalfield was at the height of production between the 1880s and 1913. In 1913 Wales recorded its highest ever output; 57,000,000 tons of coal was produced by nearly a quarter of a million Welsh miners. Big Pit was a massive employer in Blaenavon, some 1,300 men worked at the mine during the early 1920s. Blaenavon coal was shipped around the world, to as far a field as South America. It was also used by the Great Western Railway to fuel trains and engines.

The Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s brought decline to the British coal industry. Although revitalised under nationalisation after World War Two, much of the industry was still struggling for economic survival, and by the 1970s and 80s, many pit closures occurred with a severe impact on communities that had, for many generations, relied on them for work. Big Pit, Blaenavon’s last coalmine, closed in February 1980, which was followed by economic and social distress in the town with boarded up shops lining the once prosperous streets. From 1975, however, plans had been made to convert Big Pit into a museum to bring national attention to coalmining heritage of Wales. There was no delay in converting the mine to a new use and Big Pit reopened as a museum in April 1983, under the auspices of a charitable trust.

The attraction won the prestigious Gulbenkian Museum Prize in 2005 and has seen over 3 million visitors. Water still flows from the tunnels as it did when the mine was functional, and had to be pumped out to allow coal excavation. It has large scale industrial equipment dating back from when the early days. The Big Pit railway station delivers visitors to the museum on a single track built specifically for this purpose. 

Visitors are able to take a 50 minute underground tour to see the coal faces, engine houses and stables which housed the 'pit ponies' in the company of a former coal miner, who can explain what life was like in the pit. The tour goes 300 feet below the surface, and all visitors are equipped with hard hats, safety lamps, and a waist belt with a battery and rebreather that will filter toxic air for an hour—just in case.

After returning to the surface, it is possible to visit the other buildings on the ground to get a feeling for how working at the colliery felt. Still standing are many buildings including the showers and sickbay of the old colliery, with exhibitions about daily life for the mine workers through the pits' history. There is also similar heritage celebrated at the South Wales miners' museum, which opened in 1976 as the first mining museum in Wales, located not far away within the beautiful Afan Valley, six miles from the town of Port Talbot, within Afan Forest Park.

Further reading

• Big Pit website
• Big Pit National Coal Museum - Visit Blaenavon
• South Wales' Miners Museum