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Having failed spectacularly to gain entry to our target sites not once but three times consecutively on our Belgian urb-ex road trip we were getting a tad disheartened, so we decided to have one more go before canning it and heading on to Verdun a day early. Neither TJ nor I are particularly fond of industrial sites, they just don't float our prospective boats, so when we heard about a coal mine, a dirty, black, minging coal mine, we were less than enthusiastic, but we researched the location anyway and made a note of how to find it. So, with coordinates duly programmed into the "drivers curse" (that's Tom Tom to you) we found ourselves standing on a narrow path next to a farmer's field half way up a hill, where he was merrily spraying human cr*p all over the place and creating the most appalling, bowk inducing stink! OK...
A result at last!
L'histoire
d'Hasard Cherrate
mine de charbon...
The Hasard Cherratte colliery
was opened in 1860 by "Les Charbonnages du
Hasard", a local coal mining company. The
Liege area is dotted with pits and their associated slag heaps and coal
was for many years the principal fuel feeding Belgium's electricity
production. This colliery complex defies the norm by being
aesthetically pleasing; indeed the mine buildings actually compliment what
would otherwise be a rather grey and uninviting village. The price
of coal extraction increases as soon as the richer seams are depleted and
eventually every colliery reaches a point where it is no longer
economically viable to continue extraction operations. Hasard Cherrate
reached that point in 1977 and having already reduced their work force
from in excess of 1500 miners to just 600, it was time to shut down the
mine leaving the village to slowly degenerate into a rather grim looking
commuter suburb of Liege itself. And from the urb-exer's point
of view that was when life began to get interesting, for the entire site
was left pretty much alone even after it was sold off to a private owner
who has done nothing at all with it subsequently apart from securing the
various entrance doors. The colliery buildings are not what you might
expect to find being really rather ornate rather than functional,
especially the brick built "Malakow
Tower"
block which sits over the top of the 170 meter deep shaft number 1.
Constructed in 1907, it dominates the colliery and the village. The tower
itself looks for all the world like an 18th. century castle despite it's
functionality, the miner's showers and locker rooms are located here
together with numerous offices. Another shaft dug into the hillside
behind the mine buildings was named "Puits
Hognée", and the entrance it is
still visible inside the tower. It is not possible to go into the shaft
now as it has been comprehensively barred for safety reasons.
Interestingly you find this shaft entrance by nose rather than with your
eyes because the pungent and rather rancid smell of methane rich coal gas
assails your senses long before you come to the entrance!
Shaft number 2 has a not inconsiderable depth of
313 meters with a cage lift down to the coal face located inside one of
the numerous buildings on site. But the last shaft is the deepest at 480
meters. The associated
diagonally braced winding tower is
standard colliery fare and this steel and concrete construction dating
back to 1923 is well worth the effort of climbing to the top for the
variety of expansive views it affords both over the colliery itself and
the surrounding countryside. The unusual architecture of
the site meant that it was afforded historical monument status in 1982 so
for at least the foreseeable future the Malakow Tower is NOT coming down,
but nothing else appears to be happening with the site other than it's
occasional use as a paint ball venue. The buildings are littered with
innumerable artefacts including component parts of respirators, miner's
protective clothing and boots, and masses of ledgers and assorted
paperwork, the reading of which would take days! All in all the photo and
exploration opportunities here are enormous and it is a site well worth
visiting, even for none-industrial explorers like us!
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Time
to think again clearly! We eventually found that the coordinates had been
entered incorrectly and with much swearing and general irritability we
finally rolled into the tiny village where the mine really is! To be
honest it's hard to miss it because most of the main street is taken up by
a long building which runs the entire length of the mine complex. There is
little else on the main street apart from a small cafe, also apparently
part of the same building! We wandered aimlessly looking for a way in,
getting more and more depressed by the minute because the only obvious
route appeared to be down a near vertical cliff directly behind the
workings, not altogether suitable, especially as our ropes and descenders
would definitely be needed - it wasn't "in"
that would be difficult, gravity would help with that, "out"
though would be an entirely different matter! On the point of canning this
one too we wandered along a tiny back street eyeing up the building until
a guy appeared out of a house behind us, asked us what we were doing, and
then as if by magic produced a key to a side door of the complex! Of
course money had to change hands but at least it meant we enjoyed an
undisturbed explore and all the time we wanted!
