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Museum of Cannock Chase

 

Welcome to the Museum of Cannock Chase – one of the five Cannock Chase visitor centres, and the hub of the Cannock Chase Heritage Trail.

The Museum

By 1982, most of the local pits had closed and the Training Centre had closed, too. The site was taken over by the Council and in 1989 the Valley Heritage
Centre was opened. Renamed the Museum of Cannock Chase in the mid 1990s, it tells the story of local coal mining and illustrates the social, industrial and domestic history of the Cannock Chase area.

The top of the museum site leads to Hednesford Hills. You can find out more about the hills inside the Museum and along the Cannock Chase Heritage Trail.


Valley Colliery

Valley Colliery

The museum and its outbuildings are on the site of the former Valley Colliery.

The colliery opened in 1874 and was originally called the Pool Pit, after the pool that once covered nearby Hednesford Park. In 1887 the mine was connected to
Wimblebury Colliery. Coal was brought to the surface there, but the miners still descended from here.

In 1940 pithead baths were opened. Miners paid 5d per week to use them. The building later became the Mines Rescue Station, which stood at the top of Valley Road where the houses are today.


A postcard of Valley Colliery


Valley Colliery in the late 1950s

 

The Mining Training Centre

The Coal Mining Training Centre for the Cannock Chase, Shropshire and South Staffordshire coalfields was here at the Valley Colliery site. It opened in 1946, just before new legislation was introduced that meant miners had to receive training before going underground.

The colliery corn store (now the museum’s main building) was converted for training. New recruits were also trained in five Nissen huts from World War Two, which stood beside the museum. Near to what is now our main car park, surface training facilities that replicated underground conditions were built. By the 1960s, they were being used to train 15 year old boys who had just left school.
Because the boys weren’t permitted to start work underground until the age of 16, these surface training galleries provided the only opportunity for them to learn the necessary mining techniques.

Over 17,000 trainee miners passed through the Mining Training Centre, many of whom have revisited the site since it became a museum.

When coal extraction from Wimblebury Colliery ended in 1962 the colliery buildings were used only for training.

The Mines Rescue Station

The Mines Rescue Station was originally based in nearby Victoria Street but
moved here in 1972, where it remained until the service was relocated out of
the district in 1991. In 1997 the building became a public house, but was later
pulled down after most of it was destroyed in a fire started by vandals.


John Scott holding a canary cage used in mines rescue training.
He was Station Officer at the Rescue Station here
Image reproduced by kind permission of Mr Ivan Ellis

The Mines Rescue Station

The Mines Rescue Station was originally based in nearby Victoria Street but
moved here in 1972, where it remained until the service was relocated out of
the district in 1991. In 1997 the building became a public house, but was later
pulled down after most of it was destroyed in a fire started by vandals.

The Winding Wheel and Mine Car

The winding wheel outside the museum is from Lea Hall Colliery in Rugeley, which closed in 1990. When at the colliery, the wheel was unused and was left in place to give the headframe a balanced appearance. It is one of three remaining winding wheels from the Cannock Chase coalfield.

The mine car at the front of the Museum is from Littleton Colliery, in Huntington. It was used to transport coal from underground to the pit surface, where it was emptied onto conveyor belts.

 

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