A pit museum kept open as a lasting testament to the North East's proud heritage faces closure because bosses cannot find a miner to show people around it.

The drift mine at Beamish Museum could close unless a miner can be found to teach future generations.

Beamish Museum, in County Durham, is a living community with everything from working trams to exhibitions of life throughout the decades.

The sprawling outdoor museum boasts traditional sweet shops, banks, a local pub, farms with staff dressed up in traditional working clothes covering different eras over the last century.

One of its main attractions is a real drift mine which brought coal from the seams over 100 years ago.

The original mine was opened in the 1850s, providing employment for County Durham's men and boys for more than 100 years before being re-opened as a tourist attraction in 1970.

Almost every visitor to Beamish takes a tentative step into the underground darkness of the pit.

To comply with health and safety legislation, museum bosses need a minimum of two fully qualified miners to carry out the relevant safety checks and to tell people about life down the pit in the early 1900s.

Following the retirement of miner Martin Gallagher in September, the museum has been unable to find a replacement and now faces, at best, streamlining the pit's opening hours or, at worst, having to close it completely.

Jane Gibson, the museum's head of historic operations, said today: ''We need a fully certified mines deputy, someone who is qualified to carry out the required safety checks and who is fully trained in emergency procedures.

''But more than that, we need someone who is passionate about their profession and someone who has worked down the mines and will be able to describe to the public what it was like.

''They must also be able to relate stories and describe to visitors about the conditions and how life really was.

''Most of the little children that come to the pit will have had someone in their family working in the mining industry and it's a way of touching their family history.

''Our last remaining miner, George Wilkinson, is holding the fort during the winter months but unless we can recruit someone before 2004 we will have to cut the number of days we can open the pit to the public and at times be forced to close it completely, which would be a terrible shame.

''We see it as such a vital role and a challenging one. It really enhances the whole experience to have someone there who has first-hand knowledge of working down the mines.

''Two decades ago there were a lot of miners out of work and we benefited from that situation.

''But now new ones aren't being trained and many of the original miners are reaching retirement age.'' Anyone interested can contact Ms Gibson on 0191 370 4010.