The handwritten caption that appears alongside this image in the album reads: 'Model of Coal Mine. Erected at a cost of £100,000. The visitor enters a real cage, descends a real brick shaft, and wanders through 2 miles of underground passages, cut in the solid London clay. Special miners lead the visitors along the tunnels by the aid of a safety lamp. The mine is equipped exactly like an up-to-date colliery. Down below there are real colliers, hewing real coal. The difference between this mine and any other is that the coal is taken down instead of up. There are real pit ponies in the stables, latest cutting machinery was at work, and the most improved type of trucks. Extraordinary piece of realism. Story of a little world of its own underground.'
This is part of the Volume: RJW01/01 Photographs of the British Empire Exhibition, Volume One of Two; within the Collection: RJW01 Photographs of the British Empire Exhibition by Robert J Wigelsworth
Source: Historic England Archive
Photographer: Wigelsworth, Robert James
Exhibition, Mining Industry
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