On Sunday 2nd July we are holding our Annual Memorial Service for the Holditch Mining Disaster. It starts at 6pm and is held at the front of the building. Its open to all who wish to pay their respects to the 30 men who lost their lives on 2nd July 1937.
We’ll be closed on Saturday 6th May so that our volunteers have the opportunity to watch the coronation or attend events if they wish. The Apedale Valley Light Railway will also not be running on the Saturday. However we’ll be back on Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday running mine tours on both days
Pictured: a few royalty related artefacts from our collection.
The rangers have kept the middle gate closed on the Loomer Road entrance today as it is so icy. However we are open and running mine tours as usual! There is some room to park on the entrance road or on Loomer Road.
This year we’re going to be closed on the 23rd December Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New years day for our Christmas break. However we will be running mine tours on 27th December and 31st December.
The Apedale Valley Light Railway will be running “Winter Warmer” steam trains on 27th December, the last train until the new running season in spring 2023. 11:30am to 4pm, normal fares apply
Christmas Opening 2022:
* last tour 2pm on 31st December
On Sunday 3rd July we are holding our Annual Memorial Service for the Holditch Mining Disaster. It starts at 6pm and is held at the front of the building. Its open to all who wish to pay their respects to the 30 men who lost their lives on 2nd July 1937.
One of our volunteers will be showing off his garden railway this weekend (26th/27th Feb). But there’s no need to worry about the weather as it will be running in the Museum conference room, so pop down and say hello!
This year we’re going to be closing earlier then usual on the 23rd December for our Christmas Break. We’ll be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New years day. The good news it we’ll be running mine tours on 27th December and 3rd January as they are Bank Holiday Mondays.
The Apedale Valley Light Railway will be running steam trains on 27th and 28th so the you can get your railway fix to tide you over until the spring.
Christmas Opening 2021:
Yesterday we welcomed Ben with his grandparents, as the first wheelchair user in our surface mine display based on a training gallery formerly used at Kellingley Colliery, the last deep coal mine in the UK. Our volunteers have done a great job in turning this into a great facility.
We acquired it a few years ago as a bare frame and erected it on site behind the mining cage which would become the entrance to the display. It has been enclosed and dressed with artefacts from our collection to look like a colliery roadway.
It’s a great addition to the site and amongst its uses is offering people who might not be able to do the underground tour, such as Ben, a taste of what it might be like to be in a coal mine.
The news we’ve all been waiting for… we’re finally able to restart the underground mine tours! We’ve consulted with the powers that be and have the go ahead to run tours after the restrictions are lifted, so from Saturday 24th we’ll be taking visitors underground for the first time in nearly 16 months.
Of course, Covid is still out there so we will have to take some precautions as its a relatively enclosed space with a ventilation draught. Face coverings will be required underground, and we’ll take one social group up to 6 people at a time (we’ll split larger groups).
Mine tours run at weekends, from 11am to 3pm on the hour. £7 for Adults, £5 for Children and Senior Citizens, minimum age is 5 years old.
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On Sunday we held the official opening of our New Surface Gallery. This is a recreation of a section of a coal mine above ground that is accessible to a wider audience who may not be able or want to go underground. It will also be a great addition to our educational visits. Amongst the guests invited were Aaron Bell MP and the new Mayor and Mayoress of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Ken Owen and Rachel Eaton.
The gallery itself originally came from Kellingley Colliery after it closed in 2015, ending deep coal mining in the UK, and was used for training miners on the surface. Our mining team re-erected it at Apedale and have been hard at work turning it into our latest exhibit. The gallery is entered through a ‘cage’ that used to lower miners down the shaft at Annesley Colliery, adding to the experience. This has been on site from the early days of the Heritage Centre and is current undergoing renovation to preserve it.
After the opening, a memorial service was held outside by Rev Simon Boxall, for the Holditch Colliery Disaster. On July 2nd, 1937 a fire broke out on one of the coal faces at Holditch. 30 men lost their lives due to the fire and subsequent explosions. Jim Worgan, a local mining historian and former curator of Chatterley Whitfield Mining Museum gave an account of the events of that day.
