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The Purbeck Mineral & Mining Museum
Supported by

Welcome Located at the Norden Park and Ride

The Museum is now OPEN Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays
11.00am to 5.00pm
Entrance fee £3 (accompanied children free)

Come and get the "underground feeling". Experience what is was like to spend your working days underground.
Purbeck Miners explain how tough is was working underground via a series of video films shot in the 1960's through to the 1990's
Enjoy browsing our extensive display of artifacts and mining equipment in its natural setting of an old mine building.
See what others think of the new museum. click here

Although the Museum is open, there is still at least another £300,000 required for a controlled atmosphere building for Secundus and other valuable and unique artifacts, together with study room and compressor house/workshop so Please If you think this project is a great one then HELP us MAKE money for the project at NO cost to you (Click Here)

Purbeck is rich in Minerals and they have been supplied across the world. They have changed the way we live. The Museum has been built to tell that story. Ball clay has been regarded for many years as a mineral of national importance because of its special qualities and rare occurrence. The Museum is a recreation of a typical mine from the late 1980s/early 1990s. From Corfe to Wareham, the extraction Ball Clay has been been the main employment since the mid 18th Century. The Museum records the living conditions of the workers, and the families of the Clay Merchants. The Museum records that 3 narrow gauge clay lines were in Purbeck before the Swanage Railway branch was built. The Museum has a narrow gauge railway that has been relayed along the old formations at Norden that were there before the building of the Swanage Railway Branch in 1885.
The visitor can read about, see and hear the Mining activities now relegated to the history books.

The Norden Complex in the 1960's © Mike Day

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If you are in anyway connected to the Ball Clay Industry we would love to hear from you.

We need your comments!

We need your knowledge of the past Clay Workings!

Please leave comments in our Guest Book

Click Here

If you have any photos or artifacts connected to the Ball Clay Industry we would love to know.

If you would like to contact anyone in the Guestbook, please email the editor as all entries have supplied email addresses.

Changes to Website
Revision	Date	Details
Revision AA	20th April 2013	Joyce Meates book on Goathorn added
Revision BB	24th April 2013	Advert for museum helpers added
Revision CC	2nd May 2013	Tidy Train
Revision DD	5th May 2013	Track improvements and underground tub turntable installed
Revision EE	11th May 2013	Diesel Gala
Revision FF	22nd May 2013	Museum will be open for Bank Holiday
Revision GG	9th June 2013	Track improvements
Revision HH	15th June 2013	Public's comments added

is part of the

Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum

Tel :-O1929 481461

Swanage Railway Trust – Swanage Railway,
Station House, Swanage, Dorset. BH19 1HB
A Company Limited by Guarantee No.4115126
           Registered Charity 1087318