News

TOURS are being offered around a historic Barnsley monument that is classed as one of the most important inventions of the industrial revolution.

The Newcomen Beam Engine at Elsecar Heritage Centre will be overhauled in a two-year £500,000 project.

Staff from the Barnsley Museums team will be offering tours of the engine on Friday (July 20) at 1.30pm.

The engine pumped water out of the Elsecar New Colliery between 1795 and 1923 and is one of the top 10 key industrial sites on EH’s Heritage At Risk Register due to its 'outstanding importance to England's industrial past'.

Elsecar was the industrial powerhouse of the Earls Fitzwilliam from nearby Wentworth Woodhouse. Today, ironworks, workshops, a canal, collieries and the Fitzwilliam's family railway station remain around the Newcomen Engine, making this among the most important heritage sites in the world.