Bringing Britain's Great Industries Back to Life

If you are a regular visitor to this website you may have noticed a few changes.  We’ve just updated it to match our shiny new logo, with improvements all around.  The headline feature is that it’s now fully responsive which means that it adapts its layout to whatever device it’s on.  So, if you are browsing on a phone, tablet or tiny little computer you can now put away that magnifying glass as it should be legible! Clever stuff indeed.  Here’s a screen shot of how it’ll look on a smallish tablet for those browsing on a computer.

In July we’re hosting the “Inspired 2 Festival” from the MY Theatre and Film Co. It should be a great day of family fun. Neil Baldwin , who was recently immortalised in the BAFTA winning biopic “Marvellous” will be there as Nello the Clown. There’ll also be music, workshops, stalls, food,drink and goodness knows what else! For more information see the festival webpage.

We recently learned of a music project by American Folk Musician, Alex Caton, focusing on mining songs and poems.
In Alex’s own words –

“The project started five years ago after a visit to England and a family group tour down the mine at Apedale Heritage Centre in North Staffordshire, England. This happened to be the very mine my great grandfather worked in many years ago. After that visit, my interest in our family history and coal mining in general grew. Before I knew it I was collecting songs and poems (found by my father, my uncle Graham and my auntie Valerie) about mining from Staffordshire and beyond.”

Alex is currently raising funding for the recording using kickstarter, click here to go to the project page.

You can hear some of her previous work on her website. In particular have a list to the coal mining track, “Black Lung”.

We’ve barely digested the last of the Christmas pudding and another half term is upon us!  A lot of attractions close for the winter, so it can be hard to find something to keep the kids and grand-kids from driving you up the wall occupied, but we’re open all year at the Apedale Heritage Centre!  Next Monday,  Tuesday and Wednesday (16th to 18th Feb) we’ll be doing mine tours, the museum will be open and our resident Blacksmith will be onsite to do demonstrations.  The café will be open all week as usual.

The Apedale Valley Light Railway will be back in operation in April, but they’ve been busy with their winter maintenance and projects.  You can keep up with developments on their Facebook page (click here).