The Snibston Heritage Trust has announced a programme of colliery tours for 2023 - with the introduction of new characters to give a further insight into what life was like for a Coalville miner.

There is a tour every weekend with three weekends in June - including a Fathers' Day Treat - July, August, September and October.

Each tour date has three tours per day at 11.00am, 12.45pm and 2.30pm.

Tours can be booked via Eventbrite |A Coal Miners Story, adults are £3.00 per person and children under 16 free but must be accompanied by a responsible adult.

All tours start and finish at the Colliery Café and there are a small number of steps and comfortable shoes are recommended.

The popularity of the Colliery tours in 2022 marked how successful the Snibston Heritage Trust Colliery guides have been.

The tours have attracted over 1,000 people both individuals booking a day out for their family or friends, or local heritage groups bringing a group to the site.

The site has also attracted several schools with around a couple of hundred students experiencing what it was like to be a miner in the 1970s/80s.

Not only has the Snibston Heritage Trust been successful in the delivery of colliery tours, the trust has also been successful in the creation of new characters as part of the tours.

Alongside the colliery guides, themselves former coal miners from the Leicestershire coalfield, the Trust has supported the creation of Sister Jenny Cave.

The importance of the NHS at a colliery can never be overlooked and the medical re-enactment team provided a key role to the colliery and the miners.

Sister Cave is one of the re-enactors who has brought the medical centre to life with the stories of miners' accidents and medical conditions.

The Trust has also created characters from the 1830s and 1840s to ensure there is a link with the creation of the colliery and George Stephenson, who sank both Snibston No.1 Colliery, the site of the present Springboard Centre/Pegsons industrial site and Snibston No.2 Colliery, the site of the current colliery in Snibston Colliery Park.

The characters include 'Mistress Lizzie and her son 'Master Tom', who can tell what it was like to be a miner, as well as the wife of a deputy, at the time the pit was sunk.

The colliery tours also introduce Joseph Sandars, a close friend and partner with George Stephenson who tells the story of how the two men, with Sir Joshua Walmsley, developed both Snibston and Clay Cross Collieries.

For further information please contact the Chair of the Snibston Heritage Trust Dr Terri Eynon on 07986 451667 or [email protected]