Gemma Geldart, University of Bristol

Big Pit opened to the public in 1983 as a ‘working mine’ where visitors were invited to ‘experience for themselves something of what it meant to work in one of the harshest working places’. Twenty-five years on, the site still offers an ‘authentic’ experience, the guidebook reassuring its visitor that ‘Big Pit is very much still a coal mine’ and inviting them to ‘Enter the World of Welsh Coal...’. With its buildings intact, and the landscape almost wholly unchanged, visitors are encouraged to sense ‘what life was like’ by wandering around and doing it for themselves. As well as offering history where it happened, Big Pit offers the unique experience of going underground, down the mine shaft, accompanied be ex-miner’s as guides.
Now part of a UNESCO world heritage site, Big Pit re-opened as a ‘museum’ just three years after its closure meaning it was, and still is to some extent, in the position of re-presenting a way of life that was an actual way of life to many in the area. This paper will examine the intention behind the sites immediate ‘heritagisation’ and consider the impact on the local community whose heritage it sought to preserve. I will go on to consider the tourist perspective and the way mining life is represented and experienced in ways that both adhere to and deviate from traditional museum formats.

Looking at the potentials and limitations of the site, I will argue that the presence of the guide underground and their often biased, politicised and highly personal accounts of mining life fulfil an important role to both the community and the tourist. Whilst considering how the passing of this generation may affect the museum and its operation, I will discuss how sites such as these have the potential to become forums for reflection rather than novelty, experience-driven attractions.