Coal mines

The headframe of Puits Vuillemin 2 is more than a century old; it is not only a rare survivor of France's coal-mining past but also a significant architectural and technological artefact in the history of industrialisation in Europe.

Between 1909 and 1911, the German coal mine Camphausen was expanded with a fourth headframe in reinforced concrete, a worldwide first at the time.

An offshoot of the South Limburg coal vein extends far beyond the German border. That explains why you can also find coal mines north of Aachen.

On 31 December 1974, the miners of the Oranje-Nassau I in Heerlen mined the last lump of Dutch coal, half a century ago.

The iron headframe was preserved on the site where the French Compagnie des Mines de Liévin laid its first coal mine in 1858.

Four concrete cooling towers flank the former Beringen mine power plant, the only preserved mine cooling towers in the Limburg mining region.

In 1874, a cross-border railway connected the Belgian town of Péruwelz with the French municipality of Anzin. The aim was to export coal from the northern French mining basin to Belgium.

After over half a century, a double staircase climbing up the railway embankment is the only reminder of the vanished Tertre Charbonnage train station.

This truncated metal headframe took miners from the French Meurchin coal mine four hundred metres underground to cut coal.

Fosse Mathilde is one of the oldest preserved mining buildings in the northern French mining basin. The brick complex was built in 1831. The Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin mined coal there until 1862.