Pit Village
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New Attraction for 2009
A fascinating Colliery Lamp Cabin opened in March this year. Pitmen visited the Lamp Cabin at the beginning of each working day to collect their lamps and returned them at the end of the shift. Visitors discover how the lamps were cleaned, maintained and lit before venturing underground for a tour of the drift mine. On view in the adjacent exhibition are many of the museum's important collection of safety lamps alongside mines rescue equipment and mining tools dating from the mid 18th century up to late 20th century.
The Pit Village is built around a recreation of a typical North Eastern pit in the early 1900s.
The pit cottages, from Francis Street, Hetton-le-Hole, show how miners and their families lived. The backyards incorporate ‘netties’ or ash closets, and a stand pipe, at the end of the row, provided fresh water for up to six of the cottages. Each house has a large garden which could provide an excellent source of food for the family.
No. 2 Francis Street is occupied by a strict Methodist, strongly teetotal and next door in No. 3, lives a Roman Catholic family. No. 4 is altogether sparser, occupied by a miner’s widow and her sons, the breadwinners of the family.
The Beamish Board School, from nearby East Stanley, first opened in 1892. The three classrooms rebuilt at Beamish would accommodate some 200 children.
Pit Hill Methodist Chapel was brought to the museum from Beamish village. It occasionally hosts recitals by local Methodist choirs and each year holds traditional Sunday School Anniversary and Harvest Festival celebrations.
In the Colliery Yard nearby is the entrance to the Mahogany Drift Mine, which is original to the museum site. This mine opened in 1855 and was worked for 103 years, before closing in 1958. Visitors can don a hard hat and take a guided tour underground to see how coal was worked and to experience something of the working conditions in the early 1900s.
Across the yard is an Engine Shed housing a collection of industrial locomotives including two Head Wrightson ‘Coffee Pots’ and the unique Lewin Saddle Tank of 1855. This display is subject to change and visiting locomotives will also appear from time to time.
The Colliery Heapstead building was collected by Beamish in 1974 and re-erected at the Museum. Here the cages were drawn up from the shaft beneath. Coal tubs were pulled clear, weighed and recorded, before the coal was tipped onto the screens, sorted and loaded into chauldron wagons below. The cages were also used to carry men and ponies to and from the mine below.
The tall stone engine house came from Beamish 2nd Pit. The magnificent vertical winding engine inside, built in 1855 in Newcastle upon Tyne, is the sole survivor of a type once common in the North East and operates daily in the summer season.