Peak District Mining Museum

General information

The Museum:
Visit a museum where you can experience and wonder at the forgotten world of a Derbyshire lead miner.

For centuries, men have toiled underground in cramped and hazardous conditions to earn a meagre living by extracting the mineral galena (lead ore).

See the tools they used, clothes they wore, the advances in technology and the importance of this metal in our modern day lives. Clamber through our famous tunnels and climbing shafts, follow the mouse trail or play in the JCB.

Temple Mine:
Join a mine tour, put on a hard hat and visit a real fluorspar mine. Then try your hand at panning for minerals.

Temple Mine was acquired by the ancient custom of 'Nicking'. The mine has been worked since 1922 for fluorite and lead ore and shows a variety of mining methods have been used. In the 1980s gold was found in the basalt in the mine - the only proven gold deposit in Derbyshire!

Matlock Bath Through Time Exhibition:
Explore the journey of Matlock Bath from a small lead mining hamlet, to a Georgian Spa and then to the inland-seaside resort of today.

The permanent exhibition is inside the Mining Museum and included in the entry price.

Then follow the Heritage Trail around the village.