This well known sacred urban explorer pilgrimage is the main focus of today’s post. The coal mine of Hasard de Cheratte is a site with a very long history and by now it’s probably famous all over the world. We were glad when we finally had the opportunity to see this place for ourselves. But there was one tiny thing which we didn’t expect: This coal mine was already a construction site. After all these years of stagnation building workers just started to break down the buildings in January.
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Video of our exploration:
The history of this coal mine in Liège actually dates back to the 1850s. Back then the first shaft was dug to a depth of 250 meters. Today the abandoned site is decaying. Anyway, it’s hard to get in, because it’s tightly closed off for any kind of visitors – at least when you’re trying to enter from the street. On the back there are some hills and no kind of barrier at all - so we chose this way to sneak in. The hills were actually pretty bold and the slopes were slippery too. It was onerous but worthwhile – as we found out later.
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What makes this place so special is the remarkable historic architecture: This coal mine looks like a castle to us. After an accident in the first shaft in 1877 this coal mine closed for the first time. The old buildings were demolished around 30 years later. Shortly after that this site re-opened and operated until 1977. We noticed that the whole area is uncommonly small for a coal mine. Surrounded by the hill and houses the site couldn’t really expand.
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In total three vertical shafts were dug. In the 1930s, the coal mine of Hasard de Cheratte reached its apogee with 1.500 miners. When it closed in 1977 around 600 people were employed.
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Since 1997 this coal mine has been under monumental protection – which means nothing actually. There were no signs of any maintenance measures or something like that at all.
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Since the beginning of 2017 the remediation of this site is in full swing. It is said that only some buildings, which are probably contaminated with asbestos, will be knocked down. The heritage-protected part of this site – these are the buildings we have explored – won’t be demolished. They will be refurbished in the future. So after 40 years of decay the coal mine of Hasard de Cheratte finally gets a new purpose and we can cross this site off our bucket list.
Ethics
