The Lancashire Coal Mining museum was opened in 1975 in Salford's Buile Hill Park. It was originally known as the Salford Museum of Mining, and moved into premises formerly occupied by a Natural History museum. The former home of the Lancashire Mining Museum at Buile Hill was built between 1825-1827 to designs by Charles Barry. The building includes a carriage porch, known as a port cochere and was built in the neo-Classical style. Former residents of the house include Sir Thomas Potter (1825-1840), first Mayor of Manchester, his son and MP for Manchester, John Potter, and John Marsland Bennett also Mayor of Manchester. In 1902 Salford Corporation bought the house and adjoining parkland for £23,000. In 1906 it was opened as a Natural History Museum and continued as a Science Museum into the 1950s. However in 1959 the building was excavated, in conjunction with the National Coal Board and the Buile Hill No.1 Pit was constructed in the basement. Closure of the Museum was forced by dry rot from the early 1970s-1979. As a mining museum it contained two reproduction coal mines, a gallery to aid interpretation of the history and development of Lancashire coal mining and exhibitions of mining art. The museum attracted around 28,000 visitors a year. The museum closed in 2000, following financial problems and funding cuts. Many of the objects and archives came to the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, as the institution was wound up, with public records being transferred to the Lancashire Record Office in Preston.