It’s hard to believe that 1,300 people used to work where I’m now standing, almost alone, on the fringes of a mountain range around an hour from Bristol. It’s almost the exact point where the densely populated valleys and cities of south-east Wales end and the mountains and wide open countryside of mid Wales start.
The views from up here would normally be beautiful but today it’s so foggy even the red mining winch tower, a symbol of the history of this part of the UK, is completely out of sight despite the fact it’s only a few metres away from me.
This is Big Pit, the national coal museum in Blaenavon that is keeping alive the history of the industry on which modern Wales and much of the UK is built. And it’s doing such a good job of it that it has just been named one of the best free attractions to visit in the UK.
Without places like Big Pit, this part of the UK would not exist as we know it. Bristol’s neighbouring city of Cardiff would not have grown in the way it did if it wasn’t for places like Blaenavon, Merthyr and the Rhondda valleys sending millions of tonnes of coal to the city that was for a while one of the world’s biggest coal exporters.
Mining began at Big Pit in the 19th century, but it’s been 45 years since any coal was pulled from the ground here. Today, parts of the site today look like things have been left where they were when it finally ceased production in 1980, with industrial remnants rusting on the mountaintop. It’s stark but beautiful. In 2000, it was named a Unesco World Heritage Site, along with the wider Blaenavon industrial area, in recognition of its role as one of the world’s major producers of iron and coal.
The Big Pit of today tells the story of coal mining and the way it shaped modern Wales. The original colliery buildings include the winding engine house and the pithead baths, which were installed in 1939 so that miners could wash and no longer had to trudge home to their families caked in dirt.
Hundreds of lockers are stacked in rows, with many telling the stories of individual miners and officials who worked here and in other mines, as well as those of their families. I was walking around with my four-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter who, in another life, would have been working in this mine and others at their age.
It also shows how health and safety for miners was once little more than a cloth cap and “muffler over the mouth” before it developed to helmets, high-vis clothing and technologically advanced dust control, even though mines were places where hundreds of men and boys could die in a single explosion (in 1913, 439 people died in the Senghenydd colliery disaster a few miles south).
According to records, a medical assistant quoted in the 1842 Mines Report said “children are employed as air-door keepers at five years of age, as horse drivers at 14, as colliers at 12 years of age”. A mineral agent at a mine in nearby Merthyr was quoted saying: “It can scarcely be said to be an uncommon occurrence for a child to work at the early age of five years and a half – this is the youngest age at which I myself have found any employed.”
It’s almost impossible to imagine a five-year-old sitting in pitch darkness (or maybe with a faint flicker from an oil lamp) for up to 12 hours with the one job of opening and closing doors underground.
Standing in the mine itself almost makes it even harder to imagine. This is the undoubted highlight of the visit, a 90-metre descent in a metal cage to what was once the beating heart of this place, a vast network of tunnels far underground (though nowhere near as deep as many mines). The walking tour is packed full of information and things to see, even though it only touches a fraction of what is actually down here. We’re all wearing helmets with headlamps attached and, when we all turn them off at one point on the instruction of our guide, it’s hard to imagine anywhere more dark. My thoughts go back to those children.
There was also an entire stable complex down here for the pit ponies, with individual stalls almost exactly like you’d find in a farm except this is 90 metres underground. Each stall still bears the name of a pony who worked here for 50 weeks of the year, only seeing daylight on the surface once a year for a fortnight.
The tours are led by ex-miners and this was the thing that made my day. He was an outstanding guide, engaging, funny and proud of the part both he and this place have played in our history. He remembered my children’s name throughout, spoke to some Polish tourists in their language and didn’t even get annoyed when my four-year-old took his headlamp off his helmet and decided to drag it along the mine floor instead. He made the entire visit. I can’t recommend Big Pit enough. It almost feels like everyone in Wales should have to see it.
(Blaenavon is also home to the Blaenavon Heritage Railway, which operates beautiful steam and heritage diesel services on weekends and bank holidays between April and September. I didn’t visit this time but have done before and it’s well worth factoring into your visit).
Big Pit prices and opening times
- Big Pit is free to visit, though it costs £5 per person to take the underground tour and £5 to park.
- From 1 February 2025 to November 2025 it is open daily from 9.30am-5pm. Last entry is 4pm.
- Underground tours run from 10am-3.30pm.
- Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult at all times. You need to be one metre tall to go underground.