Mining Exhibition Chrustenice Shaft | Open Air Museum of the Solvay quarries

Lodĕnice u Beroun is a small village near the town of Beroum in the forest region 26 km south-west of Prague near to which are two important museums of the extractive industries that once flourished in the karst (limestone) region of Bohemia. To the north of the village is the Chrustenice Shaft, a former coal and iron ore mine which extended to a depth of 426 m. Displays illustrate the history of mining in locality, with a section on quarrying in America. Visitors are able to ride on a train into some of the workings that remain accessible.

A short distance south-west of Lodĕnice is an open air museum centred on the Parymple limestone quarries opened in 1916-18 to supply the chemical works at Neštemice which manufactured soda ash (i.e. sodium carbonate or alkali) by the process devised by the Belgian Ernst Solvay (1838-1922).  Limestone, once quarried, was taken by narrow gauge railways down cable-worked inclined planes to be loaded into wagons on the standard gauge railway that ran to Neštemice. The quarries were extended in 1956 to produce roadstone but were closed in 1964. They were restored from 1993 by Společnost Barbara, a trust formed to preserve quarries and industrial monuments in the Czech Republic. Exhibits in the former office buildings and storehouses include tools and photographs of the quarries when they were working, and a Gerhard Adam oil engine. Visitors are able to take a 20 minute tour of the underground workings by train.

Mining Exhibition Chrustenice Shaft | Open Air Museum of the Solvay quarries
Železmorudný Chrustenice Skansensolvayovy lomy
267 12 Lodĕnice u Beroun
Czech Republic
+420 (0) 606 - 885595
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