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Climbing down a coal shaft and up a castle keep in WalesSeeing how both halves livedBy Lucy Komisar
The Big Pit is a retired coal mine, no longer in use. But the Welsh Assembly Government decided that people ought to see what the lives of miners were like. This is one of the few museums of this type anywhere that are completely free to visitors. Earlier, we had visited Cardiff Castle, the home of Welsh aristocrats. The contrast between how the rich and poor lived was stunning!
The tour takes an hour. Afterwards, you can go to an excellent sound and light exhibit that moves you through passages and rooms as you hear “voices” act out what happens in a mine. But nothing compares with walking through the mine.
As at The Big Pit, there’s a guided tour of the 19th century palace. But you don’t need a helmet to climb the “keep” or wander through the rooms of elegant furniture, paintings and murals, of fantasies created to emulate Provence in France or Arabia. I enjoyed seeing the beautiful rooms, but after I’d visited The Big Pit, I couldn’t help wondering about the mine workers – and children – who had paid for this luxury.
Just the thing after a hard day in the coal mines.
Cardiff Castle Tourism information: Cardiff Gateway Visitor Centre BritRail Photos by Lucy Komisar |
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TM
We
were descending a into 300-foot-deep Welsh coal mine, hard hats firmly in place,
watches and anything else with batteries removed because the law requires it to
prevent a spark that could set off flammable methane gas. Our guide, a former
miner worker, grinned and joked. We laughed nervously. If you want a memorable
experience, visiting “The Big Pit,” an hour’s drive north of Cardiff, is high on
the agenda!
We
shuffled into the elevator shaft with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
Down in the mine, we moved slowly through passages as the guide explained how
coal was loosened with controlled explosions and knocked out with pickaxes. We
kept banging our heads against the low beams. Glad we had hard-hats! At one
point, we saw compartments hewn out of the rock where small horses were stabled
until as late as 1970. They were used to pull the carts of coal. Once the horses
were brought down to the mine, they never came out to see daylight. Sorry, no
photos of the mine. Cameras with batteries are not allowed! So you can see our
tour guide only in the photo taken before the descent.
The
guide explained that the doors between the passages were for safety – to assure
ventilation and keep dangerous gases from spreading. Since the mine is not
working, there are no gases there, so visitors don’t have to worry, but we
followed the drill. In the bad old days, little children would sit at the doors
and open them for miners when the miners’ lights signaled that they were
approaching. Otherwise, the children sat for 10 and 12 hours a day in pitch
darkness. The guide told us to turn off our helmet lights to see what that was
like. Frightening! The struggle for child labor legislation against the
opposition of the mine owners suddenly took on dramatic new meaning.
So,
how did the other half live -- the people who made their fortunes from the
mines? You get a good picture at Cardiff Castle, a huge, sprawling, walled
enclave with an elegant 19th century Victorian palace and a medieval “keep”
built by the Normans to watch for marauders. The buildings are on the site of a
2000-year old Roman fort. The palace was constructed by John Patrick Chrichton-Stuart,
the third Marquis of Bute, one of the richest men in the world at that time. He
got his money from his father, the second marquis, who became immensely wealthy
in the mid-1800s after he built docks to move coal from the valley mines. By the
early 1900s, Cardiff had become the world’s major coal-exporting port.
Times,
of course, have changed, and now both mine and castle are tourist attractions!
Politics aside, Cardiff is a charming little city, with an elegant classical
civic center which includes the National Museum and Gallery, the University, the
City Hall and Law Courts, all in white stone and pillars. And perfectly located,
right between the civic center and the castle, is the Hilton Cardiff – from
where I snapped a photo of the civic center.
I
could also gaze at the castle from the window of my room. In Cardiff, views can
be stunning, and the Hilton very smartly set a terrace restaurant facing the
castle, so you can have breakfast and other meals while enjoying the view.
Inside, there’s a trendy bar. The hotel also has an executive club, with
complimentary drinks and snacks for residents of the executive floors, and of
course a spectacular view. And there’s a fitness center, a gym, swimming pool,
sauna, steam room and two beauty salons.
Hilton
Cardiff
The Big Pit