National Coal Mining Museum
Caphouse Colliery
Tel: 01924 848806 |
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Additional Features
Activities
Indoor
Museum
Outdoor
Animals
Historic buildings
Special Offers
Sunday 23 July
Miners' Gala
Come and join the Museum to celebrate its second annual Miners' Gala. It's a huge event with banners, rides, activities and entertainment for all the family.
Description
The National Coal Mining Museum for England is located at Caphouse Colliery, on the western edge of the Yorkshire coalfield, where mining has been carried out for centuries.
A plan dated 1791 and showing workings from 1789 to 1795 includes a shaft on the Caphouse site. It is probably the oldest coal-mine shaft still in everyday use in Britain today.
Before 1827 the colliery was owned by the Milnes family but then passed into the ownership of the Lister Kaye family, until 1917.
After 1917 the colliery was run by a company, which included the ex-manager Percy Greaves, a colliery owner in his own right. Around 1941 Arthur Sykes of Lockwood and Elliottt bought the colliery and remained as owner until Nationalisation in 1947. By 1985 the coal at Caphouse was exhausted and its conversion to a Museum began.
