Big Pit is one of only two mining museums in the United Kingdom where visitors can be taken underground. This is an exceptionally complete colliery site its compact size combines with its completeness and representativeness to make it one of the best places in the world to gain an understanding of historic mining processes and of the human experience of coalmining. |
Big Pit
Big Pit is a museum of coalmining of international significance. In the context of Blaenavon it provides evidence of the ways in which the coal used in smelting iron ore at the Ironworks was obtained. The supply of coal was one of the engines of the Industrial Revolution and the central element in the transfer from organic to mineral technology. Coal at Blaenavon provided fuel for roasting, smelting and forging iron, for steelmaking, for burning lime, for making bricks, for powering steam engines, and in export for fuelling locomotives and steamships. It was vital to domestic settlement in an inhospitable climate with little timber.
