150 km E of Oporto, was, from Roman times, a significant centre of ironmaking. All the iron ore mines are now closed, but the remains of an eighteenth century blast furnace at Chapa Cunha were excavated

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

The mines around Barroca Grande , Silvares and Panasqueira, 35 km west of Fundao, are the most productive source of tungsten in Europe. Prospecting in the area began in 1886, the mineral wolframite, the [...] the source of tungsten, was identified in 1888, a mining company was founded in 1896, and production has been more or less continuous since that time. The ore body is unique, with five horizons of mine [...] mineralisation, and specimens from the Panasqueira mine are displayed in geological museums throughout the world. The landscape is dominated by large-scale modern plant, but conservation work on older dressing

Copper has been mined since prehistoric times in the region of Alcoutim, a Portuguese town on the River Guardiana, which is the frontier with Spain, 65 km north-east of Faro. Exploitation on an industrial

Terrils Rando, a guided walk through the mining landscape around Oignies in which a thousand people participated in 2007. The spectacular steel headstocks of Oignies Mines 9 and 9A are protected monuments but [...] Oignies is a coal-mining community 15 km north-west of Douai and 20 km south of Lille. Coal was first discovered in the area in 1842, and the last was extracted in 1990. The centre named after Denis Papin [...] of brick buildings from which protrudes the colliery’s headstock. The outstanding exhibit in the mining section is the 3800 hp steam winding engine built in Mulhouse in 1932 which wound coal and men up

(1800-87) of the firm Dollfus-Mieg, textile manufacturers from 1746 and from 1812 owners of the coal mines at Ronchamp. Appalled by overcrowding in the city, Dollfus formed a limited company in an attempt [...] those at Darley Abbey and Belper in the Derwent Valley in England. There are similar examples in mining communities in Spain and the Ruhrgebeit. The earliest houses were built east of the Ill Canal. An

lime. Flints from the mine were used for road building. The city of Viborg was an important market for all the products of the mine. In 1872 the peasant proprietors who held the mining right sold them to

Cuevas doubled from 8000 to 16000. Many of the mines flooded in the 1870s but the discovery in other veins of argentiferous iron brought a renewal of mining activity, due largely to the energies of the [...] Cuevas de Almanzora, 70 km north-east of Almeria, is the principal town of the mining district in the Sierra Almagrera, a range of mountains that runs parallel to the coast for about 12 kms. Minerals were [...] stands in the town square. The landscape of much of the Sierra Almagrera displays evidence of past mining activities, but the most significant industrial monument is at Barranco del Chaparral where a steam

run on the 5-kilometres of track. The railway was built at standard gauge in 1862 to take coal from mines at Zbýšov to the main line at Zastávka, but it now operates at 600-mm gauge. The museum has a static

Belgrade. The mines were closed in 1993 by which time galleries extended 1,300 km through the workings, and went to a maximum depth of 850 m. Two show mines were established after the mines closed. The Terra [...] that lead (with some zinc) was mined at Bleiberg [‘Blei’ is the German word for lead] 10 km west of Villach, from the early 14th century. From the late 15th century the mines were worked by the Fugger family [...] Montana demonstrates how mines have been worked over the centuries, with tools ranging from primitive hammers to the latest mechanised equipment for extracting ores. One way into the mine which the more intrepid

four ‘ironworks castles’ that were formerly the homes of the families who controlled the iron ore mines, furnaces and forges of the Sava Valley, of which two have been demolished. The house was built in

Blanzy is a mining village a short distance south of Le Creusot. The mining museum forms part of the Creusot-Montceau Ecomusée. The St Claude Mine opened between 1857 and 1881. Its shaft was no more than [...] deep and it was always quote small, employing not more than 90 miners. The project to restore the mine dates from 1978 and is largely supported by volunteers. The symbol of the project is a 22m high headstock [...] headstock erected in the second decade of the twentieth century. There is an exhibition showing mining in Blanzy from c 1750 to 1990, displayed in a winding engine house of 1877 that was later used as a

statue in the town. The mining museum at Cagnac les Mines, 10 km south of Carmaux, with a show mine in which visitors can go 350 m underground was opened in 2005. The last of the mines closed in 1997 and the [...] the huge area – 650 ha – once occupied by the St Marie Mine at Blaye-les-Mines, to the south-west, is now used as an adventure park called La Grand Découverte opened in 2003. Within La Grand Découverte [...] km north of Toulouse, is the centre of a small coalfield, measuring only about 10 km X 3 km. The mines were developed from 1752 by the aristocratic Solages family, who in the 19th century installed steam

brown coal (lignite) was mined from the late seventeenth century. It was extracted on a larger scale from the 1840s when it was used at ironworks in Styria. In 1869 the mines at Fohnsdorf were bought by [...] shaft extended about 1000 m below the surface, was claimed to be the deepest lignite mine in the world. Parts of the mine were placed under preservation orders in 1977, the year before production ceased. [...] winding engine and venture into a replica mine some 160 m long that was opened in 1898. Indoor displays illustrate geology, minerals, fossils and the history of mining, while the outdoor exhibits include a

the coal trams and the mine manager’s office. They can go to the top of the headframe to view the mine and the surrounding area. Examples are collected here of the typical mining equipment of the region [...] Oroszlány, 80 km west of Budapest in the Vértes Mountains was a mining boom town of the mid-twentieth century. Mining began in the area in 1939 when the population was only 15,000. With the growth of the [...] section of mine allows visitors to see the conditions underground, methods of supporting the rock, ventilation systems, lighting and coal cutting techniques. Exhibitions give an overview of mining history

Rožňava is a mining town at the centre of an extensive ironmaking region in eastern Slovakia. Its mining museum, whose earliest collections date from 1902, has extensive displays, including some located

the city’s notable textile and engineering industries. The last mine ceased production in 1984, but visitors can experience the area’s mining heritage at the Couriot pit that worked between 1913 and 1972 [...] miners from the shaft bottom to the coalface, and can see the conveyors used in twentieth century mines and the machines used for cutting coal. The winding engine can be inspected, together with the generating [...] generating station that supplied it with power, and an audiovisual programme tells the story of mining in the region.

miners were inspired by a visit to the conserved salt mines at Wieliczka in Poland. Visitors are able to visit former galleries of a relatively shallow mine, some 50 km. beneath the surface. Protected by t [...] underground, safety devices and a locomotive supplied by Siemens to work in the mine in 1925. The museum headquarters is in a former mine office near to the underground galleries. [...] Coal-mining began in Pernik in 1891 which soon became known in Bulgaria as the ‘town of black gold’. Extraction ceased in 1966, but from the 1980s public pressure grew for the creation of a museum, pa

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

for innovations in mining techniques. Visitors to the museum, which traces its origins from 1877, are able to take a 250 m tour of a medieval mine, and the social life of the royal mining town in from the [...] Silver ores were mines and processed at Kutna Hora in medieval times, and a royal mint, established there about 1300 worked until 1726 when it was transferred to Prague. The area was important in the early [...] the Stone House. The town retains its medieval layout, and much of it is built on deep layers of mining waste.