Earlier this week we were visited by the Mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Councillor Sandra Hambleton and a party of local mayors and dignitaries. They had visited Chatterley Whitfield earlier in the day and then onto Apedale for a buffet and talk about the Heritage Centre. They were then offered a chance to go on our mine tour, which a few of them took advantage of.
On Saturday 26th March we’ll be pleased to welcome the Rode Hall Silver Band and the Cast of the Congleton Players’ production of “Brassed Off” to the Heritage Centre. The Band will be performing numbers from the play, and the cast and director will be happy to chat!
Open Door Stoke-on-Trent (http://www.opendoorstokeontrent.co.uk) are organising a charity walk around Apedale to support their work with homeless and vulnerable people. Tickets include a bowl of lobby, a roll and a drink. Contact the number shown below for information and booking.
PLEASE NOTE: The meeting point address is incorrect on the image below it should be “Apedale Heritage Centre, Loomer Road, Chesterton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. ST5 7LB”
At the Minnie Pit Memorial Event, last Sunday, we met quite a few people who were descendants of Minnie Pit miners. One gentleman brought this scout belt buckle with him, which belonged to Bernard Spode, a haulage worker. Bernard was just 14 when he died of terrible injuries in the disaster, and this item helped to identify him. Sure enough, we found it mentioned in the Minnie Pit Record Book that we have in the museum:- “Identified by scouts belt & piece of trousers by his mother”. Sad though they are, details like this help to paint a real picture of the events, making the victims more than just a number.
A description of the day can be found on the Methodist Church’s webpage here.
All at the Apedale Heritage Centre wish all of our visitors past, present and future a very Happy New Year. We’ve had a great year with the opening of the Apedale Bowl garden, hosting the Inspired 2 Festival and probably breaking a few records on school visits and visitor numbers. It was also a bit of a sad year as it saw the closure of the last deep mines in the UK. In the new year we are hoping to get funding for renovating the forge to provide a better space for our Blacksmith and create space to set up a brickmaking workshop as part of our long term plans. We’re looking forward to 2016, and hope to see old friends and new faces at Apedale.
Click here for pictures from the AVLR 2015 Santa Special service.
Now that the AVLR Santa Specials are over and we’ve all more or less recovered, our thoughts turn to Turkey, Christmas pud and terrible jokes from crackers. We’ll be closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day, but will be open as usual on the other days. So mine tours and the museum will be available on 27th December, 2nd January and 3rd January and the café is open on the other days.
We’ve held prices for mine tours for quite a while now, but from 2016 we will be increasing them slightly to cover our rising costs. An adult ticket for mine tours is now £7 and for children and senior citizens it will be £5. However, we will be introducing a family ticket of £20 covering two adults and two children, and the museum remains free to enter. It’s never good news when prices go up but we still think that a visit to Apedale is still good value for money. Also bear in mind that we are a volunteer run non-profit and no-one is drawing a wage. All of the money raised goes back into running and developing the heritage centre.
Group and school/education visits will have small increase to £85 for 2016. For group visits this covers up to 20 people and for school/education visits this covers 40 pupils (teachers, assistant, carers etc arn’t counted towards the total). For each person beyond this number there is an additional charge of £2.50.
We hope that all of our customers, friends and volunteers have a great Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
We had a great event today at the Heritage Centre. Our new quiet garden, aka ‘The Apedale Bowl’ was officially opened by Newcastle Borough Mayor, Councillor Sandra Hambleton. The garden is the result of a collaboration between Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Newcastle Countryside Project, Action Apedale and Regent College to give an unused patch of ground a pirpose. The funding for the project came from grants by the Realise Foundation and the Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund. The space will be used for community and education sessions, amongst other things or just to find a bit of peace and quiet.
The Evening Sentinel was there to report on it.
