📅 Visits and Open Days ?>

📅 Visits and Open Days

2024: We hope to have one or two open days this year. No dates have been decided yet.

Ad-hoc visits

Our working party (usually on Sundays from 10:00am to 4:00pm) welcomes visitors without the need for prior arrangement. What you will see depends on a number of factors, including: the number of volunteers available; the current project being worked on; the weather conditions and time of year.

Enthusiasts and locomotive spotters

As of the most recent update to this page, we have six locomotives on site, some of which are kept in secure storage awaiting restoration. Due to the time and effort required by our volunteers to make all these locomotives accessible for your visit, we request a minimum £5 donation per person. Please contact us to book your visit in advance.

Open Weekends

We have, in previous years, tried to have two Open Weekends per year (one per year post COVID-19):

Spring Open Weekend
An invitation to see our progress over the Winter months
Autumn Open Day
Usually mid to late September. Every second year in conjunction with the Open Day at Alan Keef Ltd. (previously an annual event)

During Open Weekends we hope to have a number of additional attractions for visitors and request a £5 suggested donation per person.

A Note about Access

The Lea Bailey gold mine site is entirely within Forestry Commission woodlands, and therefore under open access agreements it is open to all. We urge visitors to take great care when walking and to keep clear of the tracks and other obstacles. The mine is kept locked and access is only available by special permission from the Mine Manager, Jonathan Wright. Following the events of January 2016, access by members of the Lea Bailey Light Railway Society is restricted to those with underground experience and then only as far as is necessary.

Further reading