Well the weather forecast wasn’t wrong and we woke to light rain but it didn’t look to bad. Our first visit today was Big Pit coal mine, a pleasant drive over the hills with little drizzle, when we arrived in the car park there was one other car and two coaches full of junior school kids.
Still very light drizzle, we will be fine. Paid the carpark and booked two tickets to go down the mine at 1130am and it was chucking it down, into the café for a coffee and then sprint across the yard to the old forge passing one of the old carriages that use to take the chaps to the coal face. There was a video running in the forge of a chap making a hinge.
Then a trip to the Winding house, this is till used to lower people (us) down the pit.
It was then time for our trip down the pit. we had to don on hard hats, lamps and emergency breather as the workings are still classed as a mine and all mining safety regulations have to be followed including lift inspections every day and mine gas checking.They also monitor the surface atmospheric pressure as a rapid fall can result in a build up of firedamp gas. Of course we were not allowed to take phones,cameras etc down, so no photos from below, all in Diana’s handbag to be collected on our return.
We packed int the lift for the 90M decent and I mean packed, all friends together. Our time below lasted about 90 minutes and was well worth £5. This is the view from the rear of the dual lift cages, one goes up while one comes down . There is another party just getting ready to descend.
We then visited the lamp room followed by the shower block and locker room.
There is also a large display of small mining equipment with things like Miners Lamps, surveying equipment and hand tools. There are also various exhibits dotted around the site. a good long half day out.
I took this photo from the Shower/locker room, one of the highest points to give an idea of the weather. Its looking across the valley.
We then headed down to the Iron Museum, this one wasn’t free to get in but well worth a visit, while we were there the weather was changeable .
There is a very nice 3D model of what the site was like in its heyday and a display in one of the old furnace buildings shows how the tapped the iron and allowed it to run in trough in the floor to cool and consolidate. One of the other remarkable items is a water powered lift for lifting waggons etc between different levels of the site .
There is also a block of houses that they built to attract skilled workers from the midlands to come and work in Wales. These are furnished in different times from the 1700s to 1966
From the top of the water lift there was a good view across the site.
Coming back to the hotel we thought we would take a different route so turned down into the town before letting Tomtom guide us home, To say it was interesting is an understatement with 135° junctions, single file mountain roads, sheep, steep hills with hairpin bends. The next task was to find somewhere to eat tonight and we have found what looks to be a nice little Italian restaurant in Brynmawr about 15 minutes away.
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