In 1985 the coal at Caphouse Colliery was exhausted, the colliery’s conversion to a museum began and in 1988 the Yorkshire Mining Museum was opened. The Museum was granted National status in 1995. Caphouse is probably the oldest coal-mine shaft in everyday use in Britain today, sited on the western edge of the Yorkshire coalfield where mining has been carried out for centuries. Before 1827 the colliery was owned by the Milnes family, but passed into the ownership of the Lister Kaye family until 1917 when it was run by a private company until Nationalisation in 1947.