The Apedale Heritage Centre

Happy New Year

Published December 31, 2015

All at the Apedale Heritage Centre wish all of our visitors past, present and future a very Happy New Year. We’ve had a great year with the opening of the Apedale Bowl garden, hosting the Inspired 2 Festival and probably breaking a few records on school visits and visitor numbers. It was also a bit of a sad year as it saw the closure of the last deep mines in the UK. In the new year we are hoping to get funding for renovating the forge to provide a better space for our Blacksmith and create space to set up a brickmaking workshop as part of our long term plans. We’re looking forward to 2016, and hope to see old friends and new faces at Apedale.

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2015 Santa Special Pictures

Published December 23, 2015

Click here for pictures from the AVLR 2015 Santa Special service.

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Christmas Opening and 2016 Prices

Published December 21, 2015

Now that the AVLR Santa Specials are over and we’ve all more or less recovered, our thoughts turn to Turkey, Christmas pud and terrible jokes from crackers. We’ll be closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day, but will be open as usual on the other days. So mine tours and the museum will be available on 27th December, 2nd January and 3rd January and the café is open on the other days.

We’ve held prices for mine tours for quite a while now, but from 2016 we will be increasing them slightly to cover our rising costs. An adult ticket for mine tours is now £7 and for children and senior citizens it will be £5. However, we will be introducing a family ticket of £20 covering two adults and two children, and the museum remains free to enter. It’s never good news when prices go up but we still think that a visit to Apedale is still good value for money. Also bear in mind that we are a volunteer run non-profit and no-one is drawing a wage. All of the money raised goes back into running and developing the heritage centre.

Group and school/education visits will have small increase to £85 for 2016. For group visits this covers up to 20 people and for school/education visits this covers 40 pupils (teachers, assistant, carers etc arn’t counted towards the total). For each person beyond this number there is an additional charge of £2.50.

We hope that all of our customers, friends and volunteers have a great Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

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The Apedale Bowl

Published October 2, 2015

We had a great event today at the Heritage Centre. Our new quiet garden, aka ‘The Apedale Bowl’ was officially opened by Newcastle Borough Mayor, Councillor Sandra Hambleton. The garden is the result of a collaboration between Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Newcastle Countryside Project, Action Apedale and Regent College to give an unused patch of ground a pirpose. The funding for the project came from grants by the Realise Foundation and the Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund. The space will be used for community and education sessions, amongst other things or just to find a bit of peace and quiet.

The Evening Sentinel was there to report on it.

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Mining Themed CD Released

Published September 27, 2015

Congratulations to Alex Caton (http://alexcaton.com/) on the release of her new Album, “Never Take a Daisy Down a Mine” inspired by a visit to the Apedale Heritage Centre. It combines Appalachian and Irish Folk with her family history in the North Staffordshire mining industry, resulting in an Album of music and poetry about mining. Alex launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the new album, which not only hit the target, it achieves a second goal of funding travel expenses to come and promote the Album in here England.

Never Take a Daisy Down the Mine – Track List

1. Collier Lass
2. Close the Coal House Door, Lad
3. Coal Mine Blues
4. Never Take a Daisy Down the Mine
5. Saving Granddad
6. Explosion in the Fairmount Mines
7. Minnie Pit Disaster
8. Working Man
9. The Diglake Disaster At Audley
10. Coal Not Dole
11. The Colliers

We have it in our Shop in the Heritage Centre at £8, kindly supplied by Alex, and it’s available on line at CDBaby (CD and mp3), Amazon (mp3) and no doubt many other online outlets. If anyone is interested in ordering one for delivery get in touch via info@apedale.co.uk and we will sort something out.

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Oaks Colliery Disaster

Published August 12, 2015

We’ve been asked to pass on this request for information and help…

Does anyone have, or know of anyone who’s relatives were a victim of the Oaks Colliery Disaster, Barnsley, South Yorkshire. in which 361 men and boys lost their lives on December 12th 1866.

For nearly 50yrs this was the worst mining disaster in Britain, and is still the worst in England. Wales and Scotland have National Memorials to mark their worst mining disasters, as yet England does not.

I am part of a small group of ex miners who are trying to raise funds for a suitable Memorial to those who perished 150 years ago next December (2016).

This was a major local and national disaster,and should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. We owe it to the victims and their families to commemorate the event in a fitting manner, and at the same time leaving a lasting memorial for future generations as a reminder of the true cost of coal.

Britain was built on coal, we should be proud of our great mining heritage, and all the men, women and children who worked, were injured and ultimately lost their lives in the coal mining industry.

WE NEED YOUR HELP.

If you have relatives or know anyone who has.
If you would like to get involved.
Or if you have any information or stories,
please contact remembertheoaks@gmail.com

Bill Shaw

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Book Launched Today

Published August 9, 2015

The Audley and District Family History Society held the launch of their new publication, Mark Casewell’s “Mining Deaths in North Staffordshire 1756-1995” at the centre today. It’s the first time we done something like this and it was a great success. Thanks to all those who packed out our conference room to support the launch, enjoy the talks and buy the book. It’s always nice to see our friends from the local mining history community, as well as welcoming new visitors. If you didn’t get chance to attend we have some copies of the book available in our shop and I’m sure that it will be available direct via the Audley FHS website shortly.

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Book to be launched at the Heritage Centre

Published July 14, 2015

A new index of ‘Mining Deaths in North Staffordshire 1756-1995’, compiled by Mark Casewell of the Audley and District Family History Society, will be launched at Apedale Heritage Centre, Loomer Rd, Chesterton, on Sunday 9th August at 1.30-2pm.

The book contains about 4,400 entries of miners who were killed, plus about 250 who were injured. Details include name, age, place and date of the accident, place of burial, occupation and address and an indication of the nature of the accident. The launch will feature an introduction by its compiler, Mark Casewell, who has spent many years on the project. This will be followed by a brief talk of about 20 minutes by Ian Bailey.

Ian helped to prepare the book for publication and will explain why he believes it has enormous value for all those with an interest in mining in the area. It costs £5.50, but will be sold for £5 to all who purchase on the day. Admission to the event and the museum is free. Mine tours will be available as usual and the Apedale Valley Light Railway are running a steam service on the day.

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Website update

Published June 21, 2015

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.

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AVLR Gala Pictures

Published May 18, 2015

We hope everyone who visited during the Gala had a great time, we certainly did! No time to catch our breath because we have a Bank Holiday coming up with Steam on Sunday and Monday (24th and 25th May). If you didn’t manage to make it, you can see some of what you missed in this gallery.

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Bringing Britain's Great Industries Back to Life