Highlights

Change to opening hours

Our opening hours are changing for the winter season.

From Monday 3 November until Saturday 31 January 2026, we will be open daily 9.30am-4pm.

Last entry: 3pm.

Underground tours will be available ONLY on 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31 December 2025.

Free guided surface tours will be available from 10 November until 19 December 2025. Click HERE for more details.

Underground tours will resume from Sunday 1 February 2026, 10am-3.30pm.

Visitor information

The Underground Tour:

Tickets for the Underground Tour can either be purchased in advance with a £8 Job-A-Knock timed slot ticket OR, by purchasing a ticket for £5 on the day of your visit upon arrival at the Museum.*

Job-A-Knock tickets must be booked in advance and cannot be purchased on the day of your visit.

Entry to the Museum remains free. Parking £5.

* Tickets available to purchase on the day, do not guarantee a time slot, are limited in number and your wait might be a little longer, especially during busy periods. Open concession pricing is available only for on the day tickets and is not available for Job-A-Knock tickets.

The Real Underground Experience - Big Pit National Coal Museum

Big Pit is a real coal mine and one of Britain's leading mining museums.

With facilities to educate and entertain all ages, Big Pit is an exciting and informative day out. Enjoy a multi-media tour of a modern coal mine with a virtual miner in the Mining Galleries, exhibitions in the Pithead Baths and Historic colliery buildings.

Mining Galleries Pithead Baths Historic colliery buildings

All this AND the world-famous Underground Tour. Go 300 feet underground with a real miner and see what life was like for the thousands of men who worked at the coal face.

An award-winning national museum that still retains many features of its former life as a coal mine, standing high on the heather-clad moors of Blaenafon, the tunnels and buildings that once echoed to the sound of the miners now enjoy the sound of the footsteps and chatter of visitors from all over the world.

Underground Tour

The Museum is set in a unique industrial landscape, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000 in recognition of its international importance to the process of industrialisation through iron and coal production.

Big Pit is also an anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage. The route comprises 850 sites across 32 countries and is a fantastic way of finding out about the diverse industrial history across the continent.

Big Pit is a living, breathing reminder of the coal industry in Wales and the people and society it created.

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