Prestongrange Museum

Prestongrange Mining Museum

Useful Information

Location:	Morrisons Haven, Prestonpans, EH32 9RX. From Edinburgh follow B1348 east along the coast to Prestonpans (55.95175, -3.00893)
Open:	APR to SEP Wed-Sun 11-16:30. Guided Tours: On open days 11, 14. [2024]
Fee:	free, donations welcome. Guided Tours: Adults GBP 3.40. [2024]
Classification:	Coal Mine Mining Museum
Light:	Incandescent
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided. Guided Tour: D=80 min.
Photography:
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Prestongrange Museum, Morrisons Haven, Prestonpans, EH32 9RX, Tel: +44-131-653-2904.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

12th century	coal mining by the monks of Newbattle Abbey.
1830	first shaft sunk.
1874	Cornish beam engine installed.
1962	Prestongrange Colliery closed.
1968	steering committee to turn the site into a museum formed.
28-SEP-1984	National Mining Museum inaugurated.

Geology

Description

The Prestongrange Museum is dedicated to an industrial heritage site which is mainly based on a colliery. Like always with collieries, they are not accessible any more after the mining has ended. So there is no underground tour and as far as we know no replica mine either. But there are numerous mining related surface buildings including the Beam Engine House with the only Cornish beam engine in Scotland. The site is also dubbed the Prestongrange Industrial Heritage Museum, while the Prestongrange Mining Museum is actually a single building which was transformed into a mining museum an is only a part of the whole site. Then there is a harbour, glass works, pottery, brickworks, winding gear and headframe, railroad tracks and a vast brick kiln. The site is visited for free and self-guided, and there is a free audioguide for your smartphone, don't forget to bring your earphones. There are also guided tours twice daily, which are offered by volunteers for a small fee. The site may actually be visited all year daily during daylight hours, the open hours are for the museum, the cafe and the other buildings.

Prestongrange is located between Musselburgh and Prestonpans on the East Lothian coast. This site was a place of intense industrial activity for centuries, starting with coal mining by the monks of Newbattle Abbey in the 12th century. This is the first written account of collieries in Scotland. For a long time the coal mining was low scale open pit mining. The first shaft was sunk in 1830 by Matthias Dunn of Newcastle, after some time it was necessary to pump water out of the mine, and so in 1874 a beam engine was installed. These steam engine powered pumps are actually a Cornish development, and this engine was shipped by Harvey and Company of Hoyle in Cornwall. It had a capacity of pumping 2,955 l/m in three stages. Als a winding gear with steel headframe was installed.

This was the last colliery in Prestongrange which was closed in 1962. At this time the National Coal Board (NCB) planned to close all collieries in East Lothian and Midlothian. And normally the sites were cleared and any machinery sold as scrap metal. This started here too, but David Spence, a retired mining engineer, had the idea to turn the site into a museum. It seems he soon had followers, the clearing was stopped and in 1968 a steering committee for the museum was formed. Volunteers restored the site and assembled exhibits, artefacts were collected from around the coalfield. It took more than 15 years, but finally on 28-SEP-1984 the Scottish Mining Museum was inaugurated. The exhibition used the beam engine house and the colliery power station.

In 1981 the Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange was closed, and the steering group tried to save that site also. So they actually opened two mining museums in 1984, and soon they realized that it was not good to have two different parts of the museum at separate sites. As a result they moved the exhibition to the other site, and this site is more or less an open air museum. The Scottish Mining Museum is at Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange, and was renamed National Mining Museum Scotland in 2011.

The site had access to roads and a small harbour at the Firth of Forth which was built in the 16th century. So this place was a hub for trade. So it was a good idea to open glass works at the site during the 17th century, who used the coal as cheap energy and were able to easily transport their fragile goods to the customers. Similar arguments were valid for the pottery which was operated during 18th and 19th century, and the brick works which operated during the 19th and early 20th century. In 1937 a Hoffman Kiln was built. Remnants of all these industrial buildings can still be seen some in a very good state of preservation.

After the Scottish Mining Museum left the site the original exhibitions were gone. But today there are much younger exhibitions with new displays, touchscreen computer, film and a children's section. They are located at the Visitor Centre, which is located beneath the museum in the former miners’ canteen. The building also contains the Pithead Canteen Café.