Noyant-d'Allier Mining Museum

The site of the coal mine at Noyan-d’Allier is preserved by an association of friends that began in 1988. The mine was built in 1920 and coal production finished in 1943. The buildings were large and efficient. They were constructed of concrete columns and beams filled with brick to designs by Eugène Freyssinet (1879-1962), one of the inventors of prestressed concrete. The tall headframe was built from concrete in 1920. Visitors can travel on a 60-cm narrow-gauge railway for 1.8 km around the site and visit reconstructed underground workings. Galleries show mining tools and a typical kitchen for a miner’s family in the 1930s.