Faymoreau Mining Centre

The coal mines of Faymoreau in the Vendée region of western France worked from 1827 to 1958. In 1995 the local council decided to preserve and present the region’s mining history in a Mining Centre at the site of a former colliery. The Centre was renewed in 2018. Displays and models show the geology of coal, its discovery and exploitation in the area, its industrial uses and the life of miners and their communities. Visitors see the pit-head baths with miners’ clothing drying, the pit-head with its railway and coal wagons, the lamp-room and the shafts. They go into a reconstructed mine to imagine conditions underground. Nearby, visitors see the workers’ houses and gardens of the 1920s, a church with recent stained-glass windows commemorating the miners, a restaurant in the Hotel des Mines and the preserved headframe at St Maurice des Noues. A 12-km heritage route for hikers and cyclists is called the ‘chemin de la mine’.