BLAENAVON'S Big Pit has won two of the top honours in the 2002 edition of the Good Britain Guide.

Big Pit, the National Mining Museum of Wales, won the Wales Family Attraction of the Year and Tour of the Year, beating off stiff competition from attractions like York's Jorvik Centre and London's Frog Tours.

The guide, published yesterday, said: "Whoever said you can't get something for nothing had obviously never been on one of these unforgettable colliery tours. "The tour guides are all former miners and it's partly their anecdotes and experience that makes it so evocative.

"These tours have been outstanding for years, and since the site became part of the National Museum of Wales they've been completely free."

Mine manager Peter Walker said: "We're obviously delighted. For many years we have been praised for the quality of our tours and now more and more people are getting in to experience them.

"There are dozens of mining museums in England and Wales but what visitors get here is the real thing, and even in an age of virtual reality and audio-visual interactive gimmicks, people prefer it."

Big Pit closed on Friday for winter, and £7million of redevelopment work, funded by a lottery grant, will be completed before it reopens in February.

Mr Walker said: "We're restoring the listed buildings on the site and we're going to pack as much into them as we can, including visitor facilities and more traditional museum aspects.

"After many years of waiting, it is quite exciting to see all the work under way." Cadw Welsh Historic Monuments, who manage attractions across Wales including Tintern Abbey near Chepstow, were also singled out for praise in the guide for keeping admission prices low.

But the government's policy of slaughter to stop the foot-and-mouth epidemic, which damaged tourist revenues across South Wales, was blasted in the book's introduction. It says: "It seems quite extraordinary in this day and age that anyone can prefer mass slaughter to vaccination as a method of disease control.

"Future methods to control foot-and-mouth must set keeping the countryside open for business as a prime directive."