English Coal Mining History at the NCMME

On the surface at the National Coal Mining Museum for England is the screens building. In this building the coal was sorted and cleaned, as rock and dirt would be mixed together with the coal. Shaker pans and perforated screens sorted and separated the coal, with people picking out the dirt by hand at the picking belts. This was a job which young boys starting out at the pit might do, or old men at the end of their working life.

Once the coal has been separated from the 'rubbish', great screens sieved the coal into various sizes as different sizes would have been used for different purposes. Visitors to the Museum can sometimes be given a guided tour of the screens building, but access is quite constricted because of the age and construction type of the building.