Hainaut

The Abbey of Aulne was founded around 637 on the wooded banks of the Sambre. Golden years and disaster succeeded for centuries, but the French Revolution dealt the abbey the final blow.

Pont de l'Origine is one of the drawbridges along the old canal between Brussels and Charleroi. 

In both Seneffe and Arquennes, traffic was guided over the Brussels-Charleroi Canal via a swing bridge.

A three-arched brick viaduct stretches over the River Haine at Maurage.

A metal railway bridge over the Canal du Centre commemorates the passage of railway line 107 between Écaussinnes and Haine-Saint-Pierre in the province of Hainaut.

Around a flooded quarry, you can still find traces of the exploitation of yesteryear, such as lime kilns, a rusted portal crane, brick tunnels and a loading quay to transport blocks of stone.

Tuesday, May 15, 1934. In the Fief de Lambrechies mine in Quaregnon (Belgium), 46 miners are trapped like rats 821 metres underground after a mine gas explosion. Eleven rescuers dive into the shaft in search of survivors.

Two metal headframes in Charleroi are a last reminder of the glorious past of the Pêchon coal mine, where coal has been extracted since 1910.

The eastern entrance to a canal tunnel has been reclaimed by nature after several decades.

The British army ruled Ploegsteert woods throughout World War I, except from April to September 1918, when the German army held Ploegsteert for six months.