Considered one of world’s finest trade union buildings and famous for its ‘pitmen’s parliament’, Redhills was built on a grand scale
Outside the impressively grand, Edwardian baroque building in Durham are two wooden benches, each dedicated to men who died too young.
They were, the inscription reads, both “sacked and victimised” during the 1984-85 miners’ strike. Yet they’re in grounds that look as if they might have been owned by rich, exploitative mine owners.
The building is Redhills, the headquarters since 1915 of the Durham Miners’ Association, which has reopened after a £14m restoration with a hugely ambitious purpose that aligns with the original aims of the site.
Redhills is considered one of the world’s finest trade union buildings. Famed for its “pitmen’s parliament” and regarded as “Durham’s other cathedral”, it was once named as one of the 10 buildings that helped change Britain.
