Do you know what a pit yakker, a bleezer or a kist is, or what a hewer did down the pit? writes Durham Mining Museum secretary, Lynn Gibson. Come along to the free Durham Mining Museum, a hidden treasure located in Spennymoor Town Hall, and learn more!
The museum volunteers are all former coal miners or people who grew up in coal mining families, with a wealth of information between them. The volunteer-run museum is open every day from 10am until 2pm excluding Wednesdays and Sundays.
The museum boasts two rooms of mining artefacts as well as a room underneath the museum with a mock coal seam and pit pony stable, perfect for kids (and adults) who want to experience a three-foot seam (much larger than a lot of coal seams in mines in this area!).
Spennymoor, like a lot of the towns and villages in County Durham, were built because of, or expanded because of, coal mining. The Spennymoor parish has seen twelve pits in its time, so it’s likely if your ancestors come from Spennymoor, that you will have mining heritage in your family. As a charity the museum relies on donations and sales revenue to operate.
In 2021, Emeritus Professor, Sandra Bell and Dr Adrian Green from Durham University wrote a book based on the Coal Day tours run for Masters students at Durham University. All profit from the sale of this book is donated to the museum. The book is just £5 and is small enough to be comfortably handheld throughout the guided walk through Durham City. It contains 40 pages of text, including directions and illustrations, with a map of the trail reproduced on the inside of the front and back covers.
The purpose of the book is to reveal the coal mining history of the City of Durham, less usually encountered by visitors and not so well known among inhabitants. It is written in an accessible style and contains what we like to think of as enlightening illustrations. Alternative directions are provided for people who have mobility problems or use a wheelchair and might not manage the original route.
The book is on sale in the museum and online so why not pay a visit to the museum and pick up the book at the same time! If anyone has any queries they can email me, Lynn Gibson, at durhamminingmuseumsecretary [at] gmail [dot] com.
Spennymoor's local community newspaper.
