About
Pleasley Pit is what remains of a colliery that was sunk in the 1870s on the Derbyshire side of the border with Nottinghamshire and worked coal for well over a century before closing in 1983. Its two headstocks still stand above the site, visible for miles across the reclaimed ground, and behind them the Victorian engine house retains its winding engines — the machinery that raised and lowered every man, every tub of coal and every piece of equipment that went down the shafts. The surviving buildings are a Scheduled Monument, and the whole complex is looked after by the Pleasley Pit Trust.
What distinguishes this site from most preserved collieries is that the engines still turn. On published running days, generally the second Sunday of the month between spring and autumn, the winding gear is operated and visitors can watch the drums, the ropes and the headstock pulleys move as they did in working practice. Standing in an engine house while the machinery runs gives a much better sense of the pit's daily rhythm than any static display: the winder was the pivot of the whole operation, and the winding engineman held several hundred lives in his hands every shift.
The indoor museum covers more than a century and a half of mining in the district — the sinking of the shafts, the geology of the concealed coalfield, the tools and the technology, the lamps, the pit ponies, the unions and welfare institutes, the accidents, and the households and villages built entirely around the colliery. The collection has been assembled largely from the community itself, and many of the volunteers worked at Pleasley or at neighbouring pits. The end of deep mining in the East Midlands is recent history here, and its consequences for the surrounding villages are not treated as a closed subject.
The colliery spoil ground has since been reclaimed as a country park and local nature reserve, open freely at all times and threaded with paths and cycle routes, which makes the site as much a place for a walk as a visit to a museum. There is a café open most days, considerably longer hours than the museum keeps, and a separate dog-friendly one. The museum itself opens midweek mornings and on Sunday mornings.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- If you want to see the winding engines running, come on a published running day — generally the second Sunday of the month from March to October. Check the Trust's events page for current dates.
- The museum keeps much shorter hours than the café: Wednesday and Thursday mornings and Sunday mornings only.
- The country park and nature reserve are open at all times and free, so the site is worth a walk even when the museum is shut.
- Talk to the volunteers. Many worked at Pleasley or at neighbouring pits and their accounts of the winding house and the shifts are the best interpretation on the site.
- The café opens daily and does hot food into the early afternoon, which makes lunch straightforward — unusual for a site of this kind.
- Wear proper footwear. The reclaimed ground is undulating and the industrial buildings have steps and thresholds.
- Group tours are booked through a separate address from general enquiries; arrange well ahead if you want to coincide with an engine day.
- Combine the visit with Hardwick Hall or Bolsover Castle, both within about eight miles, for a day that covers the Elizabethan and industrial faces of the same county.
Highlights
The Headstocks
Two headstocks stand over the capped shafts and are visible from a considerable distance across the reclaimed ground — the classic silhouette of a British deep mine, and increasingly rare now that almost every colliery in the country has been cleared. The headstock carried the pulley wheels over which the winding ropes ran, and its height and bracing were dictated by the loads it had to take.
Standing beneath one is the quickest way to grasp the physical scale of an industry that has been almost entirely erased from a landscape it once dominated.
The Winding Engines in Steam
The engine house retains its winding engines, and on published running days they are operated so that visitors can watch the drums turn, the ropes wind and the headstock pulleys spin. The winder was the pivot of the entire colliery: every man and every ton of coal passed through it, and the engineman worked to signals from the shaft in a discipline that allowed no error.
Seeing the machinery move, hearing it, and understanding what depended on it is a different order of experience from reading a panel about it.
The Victorian Colliery Buildings
The surviving buildings at Pleasley constitute a Scheduled Monument, protected as a nationally important group of Victorian industrial structures. Sunk in the 1870s by an ironworks company that needed coal for its furnaces, the colliery was laid out to the standard pattern of its period, and the engine house, headstocks and associated structures show how that pattern worked in practice: shafts, winding, ventilation, screening and the movement of coal to rail.
Very few such groups survive anywhere in the East Midlands coalfield.
The Mining Museum
The indoor displays cover more than a century and a half of coal getting: the sinking of the shafts through the barren measures to the seams below, the geology of the concealed coalfield, hand tools and cutting machinery, roof supports, haulage, ventilation, safety lamps and rescue equipment. The collection has been assembled overwhelmingly from the surrounding villages, which means the objects come with names and stories attached.
Photographs, documents and personal effects run alongside the machinery and are frequently the more affecting part of the display.
Collections
The site preserves the surviving surface structures of Pleasley Colliery, sunk in the 1870s and closed in 1983, comprising two headstocks over the capped shafts, the Victorian winding engine house and its steam winding engines, and associated colliery buildings, together designated a Scheduled Monument.
The indoor collection covers over a century and a half of mining in the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire coalfield and includes hand tools and cutting equipment, roof supports and haulage gear, safety lamps and mines rescue apparatus, surveying instruments, colliery and union records, welfare and institute material, medals, photographs, documents and personal effects, most of it donated by mining families from the surrounding villages.
Supporting material covers the geology of the concealed coalfield, the sinking of the shafts, the 1984 to 1985 strike and its local divisions, the closure of the pit and the subsequent reclamation of the site as a country park and local nature reserve.
The Winding Engine House
The colliery's surviving steam winding engines in their Victorian engine house, operated on published running days so that visitors can see the drums, ropes and headstock pulleys working.
Coal and Community
The indoor museum covering mining technology, safety and disaster, union and welfare organisation, and the villages that Pleasley Colliery created and then outlived.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.