Eco-Museum of Scottish Mining Landscapes Secures Funding

We are pleased to share that Catherine Mills and the University of Stirling have been awarded £63,784.00 by The National Heritage Lottery Fund https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/ to create the eco-museum and a big thank you goes to the National Lottery Players for making it happen. An Eco-museum has no walls or shelving but is based on a

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Mining the Future

Landscape Legacies of Coal began back in 2018 as a small self-contained project commissioned by the Macrobert Art Centre  https://macrobertartscentre.org/ at the University of Stirling to support a community heritage initiative based around the theme of coal. The project explored the landscape history of two former colliery sites, the Devon at Fishcross, Clackmannanshire and Polmaise 3 &

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A Mine of Information: The Museum at West Wemyss

Tucked away on Narrow Wynd, in the now picturesque former mining community of West Wemyss on the old coal coast in fife is a small industrial museum celebrating the history and heritage of local coal mining. The Museum is housed in what was once a bunk house serving walkers on the Fife Coastal Path and

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Letham, Lockdown and Lessons Learnt

The white rows of Letham, (Greater Falkirk) stand proud on the carse lands south of the River Forth, visible from both the M876 and the A905. Located in a setting described by Jacques in his architectural guide to Falkirk and District ‘as Dutch or East Anglian in character…’. ‘Hedgeless fields and uninterrupted views across flat

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The Coal App Goes National: Leicestershire Coal 1. Desford

On a very wet and windy morning in October just before the second English lockdown Catherine met with Susan Woodward from ‘Coal Mining in Leicestershire’ and retired mine workers Colin Harris and Nigel Mansfield at Bagworth Heath Country Park, the site of Desford Colliery.  Desford Colliery was developed by E. Edward Bramell in 1900 for

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A Weekend in Lithgow: Coal, Iron and limestone, Copper and Clay

I visited Australia in late February 2020 and spent a weekend in Lithgow, which is about three hours northwest of Sydney. I drove via Katoomba, the major tourist centre of the Blue Mountains which will be familiar to many visitors to Australia . Lithgow has a wonderful ruined blast furnace, and an excellent mining museum

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On the Trail of Coal

In researching background information for the excellent Landscape Legacies of Coal project, Catherine and her students have spent many hours at the National Mining Museum Scotland’s library and archive. The chance to write this blog is an ideal opportunity to introduce you to our library collection. The aim is to give a brief history of

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Hikurangi on the Way South

I was driving from the Bay of Islands to Auckland in February 2020, and I called in at Hikurangi on the way south. Hikurangi is about ten miles (16 km to a New Zealander) north of Whangerei, the major city of the Northland, and is 2.5 hours drive from Auckland. It currently has a population

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Collieries, Canals and the Coal Baron

I am currently a student on the MSc Heritage, Environment and Policy course and am creating a new route as part of my final assessment. This new route is based in and around the village of Twechar in East Dunbartsonshire. An area that was transformed with the cutting of the Forth & Clyde Canal and

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Theme by the University of Stirling