Former coal mine opens its doors

Staring into the depths of the 354 foot deep mineshaft which still stands at Oldwood Pit gives visitors a glimpse of the underworld industry of the 19th century.

It would have been used by a team of miners operating two cages up and down it.

The site's now a private farm but was open to the public for tours this weekend as part of the Heritage open day scheme allowing free access to hundreds of buildings across the South West which are normally closed to the public. Visitors could learn about the boys as young as seven who worked there, being forced to drag containers of coal by chains strapped to their waists.

David Hardwick from the South Gloucestershire Mine Research group says: "It was such an important part of why the villages here and why the villages of South Gloucestershire and Bristol developed the way they did and it's great to be able to put that little bit of history back."