CYCLING TOUR
Date: Saturday 7 May
Time: 11:00 – 16:00
Start/Finish: Mansfield Train Station
Duration: 5 hours
Distance: 15 miles
Difficulty: medium
Highlights: Bauhaus Headstocks; a Colliery Model Village Housing Estate; a Ducal Vanity Project.
The Nottinghamshire coalfields would take weeks to fully explore; Zig Zag will try to capture its legacy in about five hours. The (brave!) new owner of the heavily dilapidated Grade II listed Clipstone Headstocks will take us on a guided tour of the site – Europe’s tallest pit headstocks at over 200 feet, complete with generator plant designed in the sleek international modernist style. We will also discuss the origin, formation and distribution of coal as a geological phenomenon, as well as visit an early C20 ‘model village’, built by a colliery company to house the miners. Finally, a trip to the mineral rich 4th Duke of Portland’s vainglorious and architecturally absurd Archway House. We will finish the tour in the old Mansfield Brewery building where a new brewery has sprung up. Price includes entry to the Clipstone headstocks. All ex or current miners are welcome to join for free.