EXTERNAL VISIT TO AN AUTHENTIC MINE: SOTON MINE (POZO SOTON)
Guided tour by company miners who will tell us what their work consists of. During the tour, you will feel like the miners have brought the mine onto the street so that you can get to know it without having to go down the shaft.
The industrial tour will start at the lamp room and then go on to the headframes and power house, a group of buildings over 100 years old, that are also listed as an Asset of Cultural Interest with the category of monument.
Outside, the different mining methods will be explained in six educational galleries created to help you understand the ins and outs of mining work. At the end of the tour, you will learn what a chimney is, an end-wall, to place supports, to string out, stays, timbering, the chulana’s post, plating, the entrance to a mine shaft, the gallery advance, the driller, the scraper, the cross-beams, a St Andrew’s cross, etc., etc. You will witness the simulation of a blasting operation and see a scraping process in operation.
Display pieces have been recovered or reused from closed mines. The spirit of the Centre is to make the most of all available materials. The selection of pieces from closed mining shafts is used for direct display, or reused to support exhibition material.
However, the project aims to go beyond exhibiting a collection of objects. It seeks to involve the visitor, to stimulate their curiosity and interest and make them part of the exhibition and its content. The story is based on the creation of experiences for the visitor, such as going up and down a toilet hanger, pushing a mine car... weighing almost a ton!... or experiencing absolute darkness!
