MUSEUMS / Digging into a world of discovery: Paul Gosling joins visitors to an abandoned colliery that aims to bring science to life

COALVILLE became so embarrassed about its history that it almost changed its name when the collieries closed. Instead, the Leicestershire town regained its pride, and the town centre Snibston mine is now a heritage museum - or 'discovery park'.

Regular tours of the colliery's surface workings give former miners, who are now the guides, their opportunities to show off. The pit's winding gear is intact, and control room, lamp room, clock-in point and infirmary room have all been refurbished to the period of their most recent heyday, the 1960s.

The first mine shafts were sunk in 1832 by George and Robert Stephenson, industrial innovators and builders of The Rocket train. When the colliery was abandoned in 1986 the site was an ugly mess, but it has now been renovated to the point where, looking down on it from the park's hill, it is almost pretty.

It will be more handsome still when the little saplings become proper trees. The museum is within the area covered by the new National Forest, which will cast a veil over landscape scarred by the region's mining.

Snibston is not for the passive visitor, or a brief drop-in: at pounds 3 adult admission you expect more, and you get it. The emphasis is on exhibits that can be touched, felt and used, engaging the fickle minds of children, while making the museum one of the best in the country for people with disabilities.

There is a strong emphasis on sculptures that can be stroked, and there are five recent commissions on a mining theme. At the entrance there is a display of more than two dozen oversized models of miners' helmets. Other sculptures are scattered around the main exhibition halls and nature trail.

In the Science Alive hall there are 20 games that teach science through play, such as the human jigsaw that only fits together when the vital organs have been put in the right places. Outside, the children's play area also teaches scientific principles. Children are keen on the sound mirror, which projects the whispered word across the playground.

The discovery park is less a single museum, more a collection of demonstrations and galleries based on industrial and scientific themes. Leicester University has an exhibition, which includes a working seismograph and a demonstration of how black holes pull in stars. There is also a textile gallery; a collection of trains, buses and carts; a display of local stones and minerals; and a showcase of local engineering production. Working steam engines are popular.

One of the temporary exhibitions currently in place is of medieval coal mining, neatly linking the discovery park with its sister service, the council's archaeology unit.

The museum is set to expand further. An 18th-century wheelwright's and blacksmith's shop, with period tools in place, is about to open; the building was dismantled and transported from the local village of Sheepy Magna. An overground simulated working mine is also planned, as are a fire museum and an artificial rescue pond, which would lie next to the existing woodland walk, fishing lake and golf centre. Tests are taking place to determine whether an exhibition wind generator could be put on the site to power the museum.

An electrical vehicle has been bought to assist people with mobility problems to gain access to the whole of the 50-acre site. This will be available for use by the middle of the year. There is already a bank of wheelchairs for loan to visitors to the museum. Most exhibits have braille signs, and audiotapes and players can be borrowed.

Although the museum has been open for only 18 months, it is already visited by 200,000 people a year. According to a survey, 98 per cent of visitors would recommend it to others. The survey also revealed that it was achieving its aim of providing enough activities for people to spend a full day there happily.

Some purists complain that it is not a real museum - there are too many activities and too few things in glass boxes. With hundreds of enthusiastic children visiting each day, however, it is difficult to take such criticisms seriously.

Snibston Discovery Park, Leicestershire Museums and Arts Service, Ashby Road, Coalville, Leicestershire LE6 2LN. Telephone: 0530 813301.

(Photograph omitted)