Who went to the Big Pit?

[Peter B]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050527/325/fjw1u.html

Welsh pit museum wins biggest British arts prize

LONDON (Reuters) - A former coal mine in South Wales that has been transformed into a museum won Britain's biggest arts prize on Friday.

The 100,000-pound Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year was awarded to the Big Pit, a museum at Blaenafon that is staffed by former miners.

"Big Pit offers an exceptional emotional and intellectual experience," said Richard Sykes, chairman of the panel of seven judges.

"It tells the individual stories of its community better than any museum I have visited and makes you contemplate the scale, and even the cruelty, of an industrial past that inspired a spirit of camaraderie and pride," he added.

Originally opened as a museum in 1983 as Britain's coal mining industry sank into terminal decline and mines around the country closed down, the Big Pit reopened in 2004 after a seven million pound refit.

Underground, visitors are taken down a 300-foot shaft and along dank corridors, past coal trucks and stables for pit ponies that used to haul coal to the surface.

Above ground there are pithead baths, the gear-winding house and workshops.

Other short-listed candidates were Coventry Transport Museum, The Museum of Great Yarmouth Life and the National Railway Museum at Shildon, County Durham.

The first Gulbenkian museum prize was awarded in 2003.

[mharky]

i've been there, 'twas well good, snowing and everything

[Klebe]

I've been too. Had a visit last year while we were down at Brecon for the Welsh. Seemed like a dry place to go during the rain.
Excellent trip and we had a brilliant guide. Well worth a visit. ( Though personally I don't normally recommend anyone to go to Wales )

[Matt p]

I've been to. was fairly close to school so seemed to go quite a lot. twas good though. £100,000 is a sizable amount of money. May have to venture back to see what it gets spent on.

[rob f]

Hopefully the railway

[HOCOLITE]

What Rhodri's little Railway

[rob f]

yes thanks mum

[Tatty]

We went when Supersaints German exchange partner was over here! Lots of snow above ground. i think that was more appealing to the younger members of our group!!