The mines around Castelnuova dei Sabbioni, 35 km south-east of Florence were Italy’s principal source of lignite in the twentieth century but are now exhausted. The Santa Barbara Mine, worked by the electric

It was built in 1920s and it is a complex of buildings and equipment of the Concordia mine. Due to the revitalization and preservation of historic buildings – today, it looks as in the times of its heyday

area of early workings. The Peak District Mines Historical Society has been responsible for conserving the remains of Magpie Mine, Derbyshire’s last working lead mine which is perhaps the best surviving example [...] now a field centre. Magpie Mine is usually unmanned but it is open to visitors, and from time to time guided tours are organised. The site is managed by the Peak District Mines Historical Society from the [...] example of a nineteenth century lead mine in England. It has a history of more than 200 years. In its early years lead ore was extracted from numerous fairly shallow shafts, all of which have now been capped

obtaining medical qualifications, he was employed as a doctor at the mines in Ronchamp from 1946, and was well-known for his research into the mining disease silicosis. He was elected a member of the local authority [...] best known as the location of Le Corbusier’s chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, completed in 1954. Coal mining in the area began in the mid-eighteenth century, reached a peak about 1900 when some 1,500 men were [...] authority in 1953, and through the 1960s urged the formation of a museum of mining. After proposals to locate a museum in the surface buildings of one of the collieries proved unavailing, a new building,

New Birmingham, but he lacked capital and his plans were not realised. The Mining Co of Ireland, formed in 1824, established a mine at nearby Mardyke where they built a Cornish engine, whose engine house [...] of which was used near the pitheads for domestic fuel, lime-burning, malting and brickmaking. The mines in the Slieveardagh Hills between Kilkenny and Cashel, Co Tipperary, produce anthracite, that was [...] house remains, and 25 terraced houses for their workers. By 1841 the company worked three mines employing 400 people, and new developments continued after the Famine of 1846-49. Distinctive brick ‘steeples’

started out as a “workers’ colony”, whose inhabitants earned a living in the adjacent Marga lignite mine and briquette manufacturing industry. The Ilse Bergbau-Actiengesellschaft was the company operating

water are demonstrated, and an elevator takes visitors to experience the working conditions in a salt mine. The collection of artefacts includes more than 2,000 salt cellars. There are imaginative interactive

This mine open for visitors is in the Erzgebirge-Krušnohoří World Heritage Site on the border of Germany and Czechia. Silver was discovered near Freiburg in 1168 and mining continued until the 1990s.The [...] The Markus Röhling mine began to work in the sixteenth century. Its biggest ore deposit was found in 1733 and it produced large quantities of silver and cobalt ore until 1857. The mine was redeveloped in [...] 1950. From the earlier era of silver mining, a wooden water wheel 9-m in diameter has been recreated, which would have pumped water from the lower levels of the mine. Other operational machines are used

around Massa Marittima, 45 km south-west of Siena, have been extensively mined for various metallic ores and for building stone. The mining museum is located in the town’s central square by the cathedral, but [...] the area’s industrial heritage. Tours from the museum guide visits to a variety of sites, including mine workings that extend 700 m into the hillside, and the well-preserved eighteenth-century blast furnaces

industrial heritage. The Miniera di Masua and Porto Flavia are within the Geological Mining Park of Sardinia. Mining at Masua dates to the seventeenth century. It expanded with the Montesanto company in [...] them through the tunnels to a tall archway and a tower built into the cliff. The mining village and a museum of mining machinery can be seen at Masua.

central electricity generating plant, the workshops and the pithead house – all fine relics of local mining history and now used for exhibitions, concerts, cabaret and the like. Nonetheless the main role here [...] went right from the start. Water kept breaking into the shafts and it took almost ten years before mining could begin on a regular basis. But in 1914 the pit flooded once more and the colliery was beyond

the mine’s 120th anniversary. The project became part of the OKD Mining Museum at Ostrava in 2001. Visitors are able to explore a show gallery that extends 130 m into the Homola hill, to see mining machinery [...] large coal mine dating from 1874 with shafts extending 527 m below the surface that ceased operation in 1997. The decision to develop a museum on the site was taken as early as 1993 when the mine was still [...] machinery from the early 20th century and to admire the mine’s imposing headstock and winding gear. They can inspect the mine rescue station and the rooms where the miners changed into their working clothes

century mining activities at the Mechernich Lead Mine were well-known all over the country. Alone in 1882 there were almost 4,500 people engaged in pit work. And as late as 1952 the lead mine and its mills [...] constructed on the edge of the former mining area. Furthermore an old mining gallery has been converted into a visitors´ gallery, run by the Friends of the Mechernich Mining Museum. Here visitors can learn some [...] (lead ore deposits). The tour takes place in the Eifel region, in the galleries of the mining museum in Mechernich. Mining started here under the Romans, and since the 13th century the main product brought

Second World War uranium ore was mined as well as coal, but the industry has now entirely closed down. The Mining Museum in Pécs opened in 1981. It includes a replica mine, 400 m long, created in a former [...] Hungary. Mining for coal in the nearby Mecsek Hills began in the late eighteenth century, and in the mid-nineteenth century the Danube Steamship Company bought land to be used for large scale mining. After

The Mequinenza Mine Museum presents over 170 years of mining history. Coal mining began in this area of north-east Spain in the late nineteenth century. The museum is housed in the underground workings [...] collection of machines, tools, mannequins and photographs from the region’s coal mines represent the industry. The Mine Museum is part of the ‘Museums of Mequinenza’ with the Mequinenza History Museum [...] workings of a genuine coal mine that closed in 2014. Equipped with helmets, visitors take a guided tour through 1 km of tunnels into the hillside, on foot and riding in railway wagons. They learn about the evolution

be seen here today is white: potassium salt. You can see it for yourself in the Merkers Adventure Mine in the central Werra valley. Visitors are kitted out with clothes, a helmet and a lamp and a cage [...] equipment are parked in other locations and nearby a roomy underground museum brings the old potassium mine back to life. The high point of the journey underground is the fairytale grotto full of huge salt

valley). The mines and the smelter closed in the 1990s and a small part of the labyrinth of underground workings is open to the public. Visitors are taken on a train 3.5 km into the mine where there are [...] used there at different periods in the past. At the mine entrance are displays of photographs of the area and of tools and other equipment used in mining, together with a rich collection of geological specimens [...] Mines in the Karavanke mountains near Mezica (formerly Miess), which lies close to the border with Austria, north-west of Velenje, were worked from the 17th century, and were one of the principal sources

washrooms recall the activities that once took place here day and night for 150 years. In the Michal Mining Museum and Cultural Centre in Ostrava (Czech Republic) visitors can follow the daily routine of colliers

history of mining going back 10,000 years to the Neolithic. Milos Mining Museum opened in 1998 in a purpose-built building on the waterfront with three floors of displays. Neolithic mining on the island

about mining history, mining technology, geology and the story of the last family to work the mine. Guided parties of visitors are also able to venture into a mining gallery 0.7 km long. The mining village [...] Frédéric Velge Foundation as part of a programme to revitalise the local economy after the closure of mines and other industries. The project was supported by the Portuguese Association for Industrial Archaeology [...] The indoor part of the museum is located in the power station of 1934 that supplied the pyrites mines. Visitors can see other surface buildings including the geological laboratory, the oil storage room