Underground - Trapper


1842 Gallery


Interactive at Hope pit


The Nature Trail

Exploring the Museum
Are you seeking new ways to engage and inspire your pupils? Do you want them to experience high-quality learning outside the classroom?
A visit to the National Coal Mining Museum offers pupils a unique opportunity to see and feel at first hand what life was like at the coalface and to find out about the communities that grew up around the industry.

There are several areas of the Museum to explore, each providing a creative stimulus and context for learning in many different curriculum areas.
To find out more about how to link your visit to areas of the National Curriculum please download our study guide. Alternatively if you are interested in booking a workshop, please click here to download the Teachers' Guide.

Underground Tour 
With a coal miner as their guide, pupils ride the cage 140 metres underground to visit authentic pit workings. The tour traces mining techniques and conditions through time. Each of the mining guides worked locally as a miner and will answer any questions or share his personal experiences of working underground. Each tour lasts around 1 hour 20 minutes.

Explore Authentic Pit Buildings 
The Museum has many original colliery buildings that are open to the public. Sights, sounds and smells combine to give each building its own unique atmosphere.

For more information about the buildings and galleries on site, please click here to see the virtual tour and map.

Galleries and Exhibitions 
The galleries and exhibition spaces show the history of coal mining and coal-mining communities in England and provide an exciting learning experience with interactive audio-visual displays. Look out for Special Exhibitions in the Special Exhibition Space. 

Hope Pit 
Hope Pit is a smaller, nineteenth-century mine complex on the main Museum site. The interactive displays and multimedia science exhibits explore science concepts through mining history and technology and have been linked to the KS1 and KS2 Science curriculum. Follow the Hope Pit sensory trail and see science come alive.

Nature Trail
Explore the half-mile trail around the colliery site through mature, mixed woodland. The trail finishes at Hope Pit, where an innovative system of reed beds and settling ponds cleans the dirty water pumped from underground.

For more information please download our Nature Trail booklet