Swansfield Park Primary School

Classes

Beamish Museum

Chestnut Class had a fantastic trip to Beamish Museum! We experienced life in a late Victorian town when we looked around the shops and dentist surgery in the 1900s town and spoke to the staff behind the counters. We then travelled further back in time to 1897 and went to school as Victorian school children before finally learning about the dangers of life down the pits in a coal mine!

1900s Town

Victorian School Lesson

Our final activity was 'Just One Spark' in the Chapel beside the mine and colliery. We learned about the dangers of explosions in mines and how - following the Felling mine disaster of 1812 - a miner's safety lamp was developed by George Stephenson (the 'Geordie Lamp') and Humphry Davy (the 'Davy Lamp'), and although George Stephenson developed and tested his first, Davy claimed that he had cheated! In this activity we were shown several controlled explosions to show 1) a methane explosion in a mine, 2) what happens when coal dust gets near to a flame and 3) how the safety lamp contained any explosion.

Before the development of the safety lamp, a 'penitent' or 'fireman' would be dressed in wet heavy cloth.

They would carry a stick with a flame on the end and would crawl through the mine.

If there was any methane, the flame would burn it off.

But if there was a large pocket of methane, the poor miner would be blown up!