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Renovation works
On 26th October work started on a program of renovation which is due to last 39 weeks. The program will cost about £900,000 and includes extensive repairs to the North and South headstocks, the South heapstead roof and the engine-house floors.
The North and South engine-house east side windows, which are currently blocked up, will be reinstated, with the original wood and metal frames renovated.
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The exterior of the engine-houses will receive considerable attention, with missing or damaged stonework reinstated, window cills repaired or replaced, structural cracking repaired and deep pointing made good.
Mains drainage is to be provided to the site and a small toilet block connected to it allowing the Porta-Loos to be dispensed with. The cabins and shipping containers used for canteen, workshop and storage will be relocated further away from the North pit-top, freeing up the area in front of the headstocks and the engine-house.
All in all, a major step forward along the road towards the Pleasley Pit mining museum / heritage centre.
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Electrics upgrade:
After a number of false starts, the replacement of the existing installation supplied by the diesel generator with a new mains fed system looks about to take place. A considerable amount of work has gone into identifying the short, medium and long term requirements of the site and a stable picture has finally emerged.
The costs of implementing the full layout are not inconsiderable and, unfortunately, the available funding is some way short of meeting them. It has been decided, therefor, to obtain a design specification which takes into account the future requirements, to install the distribution and other essential circuits, but only implement at this stage sufficient sub-circuit provision to cater for the immediate needs of the Friends of Pleasley Pit.
Once this has been done, the installation can then be expanded to meet the developing needs on an incremental basis, as and when further funding becomes available.
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History:
Research into the technical history continues to be productive. Newspaper articles from the time have thrown considerable light on early events, especially the sinking. It is now known to have taken some 6 years, with the Top Hard seam finally being reached at the South shaft in February 1879.
A number of items have been acquired via Ebay, including a copy of the original design proposal for the Markham winder and a set of photographs showing aspects of the new mine-car handling arrangements in the North and South pits from the 1950s.
A professional A3 scanner and a photographic quality A3 printer have recently been purchased and are now being used to make high resolution archival copies of documents, maps and photographs. In addition, archival copies are being made of the Markham photographic records for both the North and South winders. A number of these have already been transcribed onto a computer drafting package and scaled drawings of both winders are in the process of being produced.
It is hoped to have a number of the more interesting photographs, together with explanatory text, on semi-permanent display once the major works are completed.
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Web Site:
After having to be put on the back burner for about six months, work on the website was recently resumed. An upgrade of the operating system to MSoft Vista and a move of the source files onto another computer led to major problems but things now seem to be sufficiently stable to allow work to continue. A lot of information has been accumulated in the last year so there will be plenty of developments to the site. Unfortunately, maintaining the change log when things are evolving rapidly has become a major difficulty and some means of automating this is being sought.
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