Astley Colliery Museum and The Dream

Lesson: History

Class: Year 3 Year: 2017 - 2018

Year 3 had an amazing time at Astley Coal Mining Museum and experienced what the smells and sights would have been whilst working within a colliery. The museum holds the largest coal mining wheel in the world and is still working today. We used our amazing sketching skills to record the sights such as coal trucks, machinery and models of Pit Ponies. We focused on the significance of the ‘Leeds, Liverpool Canal’ to transport coal to factories to neighbouring cities. Our guides for the morning, Trevor and Steve, gave informative talks about where coal comes from, the roles of workers down the mines and the dangers down the mines. We also found out about mining disasters, the pay for the workers and how children were used down the mines. Trevor and Steve gave us all a ‘Miners Tally’ and a piece of coal as a memento of the day.

We then travelled to The Dream. This is a sculpture that sits on the former site of Sutton Manor Colliery. We used our knowledge from Astley to imagine what the site would have been like when it was a working mine. We read information at the site to learn about the artist, the history of the sculpture and why it was positioned here.