Media Releases

The Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre will open in October (2008) and feature a display that tells the story of the dramatic rescue of miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb.

Russell and Webb were rescued after spending two weeks trapped by a rock fall one kilometre underground. This extraordinary story was told worldwide and the legacy of against-all-odds survival has transformed not only lives but also parts of the town.

The Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre is adjacent to the working gold mine where Russell and Webb were trapped. The centre is a mix of old and new for it includes the Grubb Shaft Gold & Heritage Museum which opened in 1984. The museum was in two brick buildings once owned by the Tasmanian Gold Mine Company which extracted gold from two shafts – the Grubb and the Hart Shafts – from 1877-1914.

The buildings, dating to 1904 and classified by the National Trust, will be incorporated into the Heritage Centre which, overall, will be 50 per cent larger than the museum. Before the 2006 rescue the museum received about 20,000 visitors a year. The figure has doubled to 40,000 (approx) visits since.

At the mine rescue display visitors can view a replica of the rock fall area where the miners waited in the cage to be rescued. To get there though, visitors will crawl through a tunnel underneath rocks. Half way through the tunnel visitors can stand up in a viewing hole and look in to the cage, Webb and Russell’s ‘home’ for 14 days.

Key features of the interactive display were designed by Thylacine, a company specialising in the development and interpretation of exhibition displays (clients include the National Museum of Australia). Webb and Russell worked closely with the designers. “For a reconstruction of an event that happened two years ago, I’m impressed,” said Todd Russell. “My kids are really looking forward to seeing it.”

The display also portrays a wider underground mine environment and recognises the people involved in the rescue and the innovation that took place during the protracted efforts to retrieve the two men. Included in the displays are stories on how the community united in the crisis, how the town coped with the influx of media, and Beaconsfield’s recovery after the dramatic event.

The whole experience is also somewhat reflective and provides visitors with an insight into what the conditions underground would have been like during the rescue.

The museum’s official opening is scheduled for early October.

Entry: Adults $11; pensioners $9; children $4 Family $28
Anna Curtayne:
(03) 6383 6375
anna.curtayne@wtc.tas.gov.au