{"id":19105,"date":"2018-05-26T16:48:33","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T15:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=19105"},"modified":"2018-05-26T16:48:33","modified_gmt":"2018-05-26T15:48:33","slug":"ihbcs-heritage-from-the-doorstep-this-countrys-heritage-is-about-its-pits-as-well-as-its-palaces-says-the-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=19105","title":{"rendered":"IHBC\u2019s Heritage from the doorstep: \u2018This country’s heritage is about it’s pits as well as its palaces\u2019 says the Mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"website\"<\/a>An opinion piece from the Mirror<\/em> by Paul Routledge suggests that, if we\u2019re ever to understand where we\u2019re going, we have to grasp where we\u2019ve come from\u2026<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

The Mirror<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n

Drive into the former pit village of South Elmsall and you\u2019ll see a massive steel wheel set in concrete by the roadside. It once turned day and night, taking down miners and bringing up coal that warmed homes and kept industry going. Now it\u2019s all that left of Frickley Colliery, once the pride of the Yorkshire coalfield, employing 2,000 men. The mine was closed and dynamited, like many more in the 1990s in Thatcher\u2019s industrial holocaust. The wheel is a mute reminder of a way of life. A slice of industrial archaeology for people who will never know the reality of the miners and their communities. It\u2019s a moving monument but it\u2019s not enough to tell the story of gen\u00ad\u00aderations who toiled under\u00ad\u00adground so we could put the lights on. Not enough to pay trib\u00adute. If we\u2019re ever to understand where we\u2019re going, we have to grasp where we\u2019ve come from: workers who put the Great into GB.<\/p>\n

Industrial archaeology \u2013 saving the bricks, mortar and steel \u2013 began in the 1960s when historians realised mills, coal mines, ceramic works and even gasometers tell a different story of yesteryear from the country houses of the rich and famous. It\u2019s alright faffing about in Downton Abbey-land, admiring the ancestral portraits of Sir John and Lady Mary and their Chippendale furniture. But where are the places of work that made the toffs their money? Gone under the bulldozer. A big political push to save what\u2019s left was launched today. MPs and peers of all parties joined forces to demand that industrial heritage sites that helped shape the country must be protected.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Nick Thomas-Symonds says: \u2018We have some beautiful stately homes but equally our heritage is about the history of working people.\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 Ex-miners fought to preserve the headgear at Thorne Colliery, near Don\u00ad\u00adcaster. This gaunt steel frame dominates the flat landscape, a stark souvenir of an age already slipping into lost consciousness. But it\u2019s edifices like these that act as triggers to the memory of what has gone. And here\u2019s another thing. Nobody complains that Fountains Abbey, Bolton Abbey and the nation\u2019s great castles are ruins, shells of their former glory. They are admired for what they once were and what they contributed to the Middle Ages. So our Victorian and 20th-century industrial heritage doesn\u2019t have to be prettified to make it attractive and meaningful. I\u2019d sooner see a soot-blackened, stabilised ruin of a stone textile mill that evokes the ghosts of workers past than rows of so-called executive homes. Back in South Elmsall, the colliery wheel is sited next to the memorial where the village\u2019s war dead are remembered. That\u2019s how much they value their working past…and it\u2019s a lesson the country should learn.<\/p>\n

Read more….<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An opinion piece from the Mirror by Paul Routledge suggests that, if we\u2019re ever to understand where we\u2019re going, we have to grasp where we\u2019ve come from\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19107,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19105\/revisions\/19107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}