However, with less than seventy years on the counter, Quesnoy was one of the younger mines in le Centre, the mining region that extends around La Louvière. With the Borinage near Mons, le Pays Noir around Charleroi and the Liège mining basin, le Center was one of the four important mining regions in Wallonia.

Part of Bois-du-Luc

The Charbonnages de Bois-du-Luc, whose headquarters were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012, built the mining headquarters in Quesnoy in 1903. This made the mine, all in all, quite modern.

After the Second World War, the Charbonnages de Bois-du-Luc suffered a blow. The creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 led to the closure of the Bois-du-Luc headquarters a few years later.

Quesnoy stayed open until 1973 and was last active in le Centre. After three centuries of coal extraction, the curtain fell on the mining industry around La Louvière.

Entrance gate

The beauty of the entrance gate stands in stark contrast to the horror that took place underground. Newspaper articles about the Quesnoy mine are a series of miners crushed by collapsing galleries, bloody amputations and runaway wagons causing death and destruction.