IT’S one of Yorkshire’s hidden secrets.
And the Furnace Shaft at the National Coal Mining Museum has won a construction award for Heritage Project of the Year.
The recently-renovated furnace shaft at the museum, at Overton between Huddersfield and Wakefield, is believed to be the only one of its kind still in existence.
It forms part of a £2.7m Heritage Lottery Funded renovation project entitled Making Sense Of Mining.
The £870,000 renovation included vital repairs to the shaft, as well as enabling the museum to maintain access to its riding shaft, through which visitors access the pit, and also to extend and revitalise its unique underground tour.
Caphouse Colliery, where the museum is based, is the only intact 19th-century colliery surviving in the UK, making the furnace shaft a unique example of mining history.
Visitors can now look down the shaft’s full 140-metres depth from a specially-constructed glass panel covering its exposed surface, or look up to the pinpoint of light on the surface as part of the museum’s popular underground tours.
The shaft would originally have had a fire lit at the bottom, to send warm air up, thereby drawing in fresh air down the main riding shaft, 35 metres away, and so ventilating the pit.
The Yorkshire and Humber Construction Best Practice Awards, which were held in Leeds, recognise best practice in the industry across the region.
As category winners, the National Coal Mining Museum for England will now be entered into the Constructing Excellence National Awards, to be held in London on November 30.
Willie McGranaghan, mine manager at the museum said: “Conserving the furnace shaft was a major part of our Making Sense Of Mining project.
“It has protected a unique piece of our country’s mining heritage for current and future generations.
“Since we unveiled the project and revealed the amazing glass cover, which is in the Lamp Room, where visitors set off on the underground tours– it has become a highlight for many visitors.
“It’s fantastic seeing children and adults either venturing on to the cover so that they are standing directly over the 140m ‘deep’ chimney or, in other cases, just peering over the edge.
“The project was a huge technical challenge and winning this award is testament to the skills and determination of the team that brought it to fruition. We now have our fingers crossed for the National Awards.”
