Black Country Living Museum colliery to be brought to life thanks to grant

The Racecourse Colliery was built at the Tipton Road attraction as a typical Black Country coalpit. It was named after the 1846 Dudley Racecourse which originally stood on the same land.

The grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement will allow visitors to be able to see the colliery in action.

The restoration work will begin next month.

It will include a repair to the tub tramway so that coal can be transferred by pit pony, installation of atmospheric lighting, the restoration of a pit cage which shows how miners were lowered into the shaft and a host of costumed characters to tell the real stories of those who worked there.

The grant completes the museum's fundraising efforts for the area, which has seen financial support from 82 individuals through its Big Give campaign.

The assessment panel said that they were particularly impressed by the museum's visitor numbers and agreed that the planned renovations would genuinely increase the amount of time visitors spend on site.

The museum's Jonathan Wilson said: "The completion of this project will mean the museum is able to provide an immersive and thought-provoking experience of this important Black Country industry for our visitors and give them a real sense of what day-to-day life was like for the people and animals working above a Black Country mine."

The news follows the museum's multi-million pound plans to create a 1940 to 1960s town with historic buildings from across the region.

Some landmark buildings would be taken down brick-by-brick and then rebuilt at the Dudley site, while others which no longer exist would be recreated using archive images and information. Matt Hancock, minister of state for digital and culture said: "These grants will make an important contribution towards increasing access to their wonderful collections and improving the visitor experience at museums right across the country."

The expected completion date for the project is February 2018.