This is located on the edge of the Yorkshire coalfield, West Yorks., where mining has been carried out for centuries. It opened in 1988 and the museum was granted national status in 1995. A plan dated 1791 showing workings from 1789 to 1795, includes a shaft on the Caphouse site. It is probably the oldest coal mine shaft still in everyday use in Britain today.
Caphouse Colliery was sunk in the 1770s or 1780s and the Hope Pit in the 1820s. The boiler house and stone and brick chimney at the museum are Grade II listed structures built around 1876 for Emma Lister Kaye, along with the steam winding engine house boiler yard, heapstead and ventilation shaft which are Grade II listed. The boiler house has 2 Lancashire boilers and powered the winding engine. The timber headgear at Caphouse and the wood-framed screens building at Hope Pit date from between 1905 and 1911. Pithead baths and an administration block were built between 1937 and 1938.
From 1827, the colliery was owned by the Milnes family, passing to the Lister Kaye family until 1917. After that, the colliery was run by a company which included the ex-manager Percy Greaves, a colliery owner in his own right. Around 1941, Arthur Sykes of Lockwood and Elliot bought the colliery and remained as owner until Nationalisation in 1947. By 1985 the coal at Caphouse was exhausted and its conversion to a museum began.
Entrance to the museum is free. Visitors can experience the history of mining over several centuries, both above and below ground and experience a descent of 140 metres underground on a unique mine tour!