Apedale Heritage Centre
Apedale Heritage Centre
Created at the site of Staffordshire's Apedale Mine, offering an underground mine experience, with informative museum, café and gift shop.
We are located in North Staffordshire’s Apedale Community Country Park in an area that was once an industrial powerhouse.
The Heritage Centre was founded in 2001 on the site of Apedale Colliery, which had closed a few years earlier in 1998. We are entirely run by volunteers and our main funding comes from our café, mine tours and donations.
Our café is open every day so even if you are just passing you can drop in for a cuppa or to try some North Staffordshire Oatcakes, a speciality of the Potteries. At the Weekends and Bank Holiday Mondays you can take a guided tour of an authentic drift mine and look around our museum. The Apedale Light Railway is located right next to us and operates from Spring to Autumn.
Local history comes alive during an unforgettable journey of discovery that starts over 300 million years ago (the formation of coal) through to the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD43, the impact of the Industrial Revolution and the post-industrial changes of recent years.
Museum
The museum itself consists of displays explaining the history of Apedale and the surrounding area. These cover the formation of coal, its extraction, fossils, the local Roman fort and town and the life and work of the miners from the Victorian period to modem times.
Other displays include a mines rescue vehicle, a detailed model of a drift mine, several industrial locomotives, mining photographs, documents, tools and a selection of other artefacts. The lower part of a wall from a local Roman building of importance, and authentic reproductions of a miner’s cottage of the 1920s and mine medical room are of special interest.
Mine
Apedale is a drift mine, where the coal workings are reached by means of a walk-in incline, rather than a vertical shaft. Mine tours start with everyone being kitted out and lamped up in the Lamp Room – this gives the children a real “hands on” event as pupils wear the same equipment as the Mine Guide. Before entering the mine, the importance of the “contraband rules”, good ventilation, and method of moving coal and other materials with a powerful haulage engine are explained.
The fully-trained Guide will then take you through an actual coal and ironstone seam that was, until quite recently the daily work place for many local hard working miners. The various methods of coal extraction are described and the group will have opportunities to take part in hands-on demonstrations. In addition, they learn about the friendships, hardships and dangers of working underground.
The informative talk and tour by one of our expert guides will greatly enhance pupils’ understanding of topics such as Geography and Local History as well as giving them increased knowledge of the history of Coal Mining and its communities.
Educational Visits
Apedale can offer a unique experience for schools, universities and other training or research requirements. The education sessions at the Centre consist of two guided tours (Mine & Museum). All tours include hands-on opportunities for the children.
The experience is like no other, as pupils actually have a guided tour underground and are surrounded by the unique atmosphere of a real coal mine that was once the workplace for hundreds of miners.
Along with an interesting and informative museum, a welcoming café and the surrounding countryside of Apedale Community Country Park, we offer schools an excellent educational package linked to the National Curriculum.
For University Students and Adult groups we can offer an experience tailored to your training or research needs.