Industrial Heritage

A fence of precast concrete elements borders a former GDR-run horticultural farm in the German capital, Berlin.

A century ago, in 1925, the Guenot & Duprez cotton mill appeared on the scene in the French textile town of Tourcoing.

A more than 100-year-old port crane waltzed around Antwerp's port docks until early this century.

At barely 25, Jules de Hemptinne stood at the cradle of a cotton spinning and weaving mill on the Kolveniersgang.

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.

At the edge of a flooded clay pit, a rusting clay dredger recalls the mechanical mining of clay for the brick industry.

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

Antwerp has been connected to the Netherlands by rail since 1854. In the early days, trains wriggled through the city centre at street level, which was not ideal. Indeed, steam locomotives caused a lot of noise and odour during their passage.

The invention of the Bessemer process in 1856 made large-scale steel production possible, heralding the start of the Second Industrial Revolution.
 

You will find relics of the former railway yard Spoor Oost along the ring track around Antwerp.