9-9bis Pit, Oignies

Wallers-Arenberg Pit head frames

Production sites

The pits: these buildings are regular features of the region and are important reminders of the make-up of the modern landscape of the Coalfield. Of the fifty or so pits located, four sites stand out and provide a perfect picture of a pit top and of the technical system used to mine coal.

The pit head frames: The Nord-Pas de Calais Coalfield today has twenty-four pit head frames. Through their construction materials, their dimensions and their styles, which are linked to both technical and architectural concepts, these edifices offer a remarkably complete insight into the changes in extraction techniques: pit head frames in traditional masonry (early 19th century), pit heads with riveted lattice frames (late 19th century – 1939), concrete pit head frames (1920s), pit heads with plate girder frames (1946 onwards), concentration pitheads (1950s).

The slag heaps: the impact which these veritable artificial mountains, of varying shape and impressive volume, have had on the landscape and the environment is, in a flat region, considerable and undeniable. There are several types of slag heaps which correspond to the uses and techniques of each era: flat slag heaps, conical slag heaps, large, modern, conical and plateau slag heaps. The heaps, by virtue of their imposing volume and height, bear witness to the breathtaking speed and the violence of the environmental impact of the mining industry.

Communication sites:

Mining went hand-in-hand with the intensive development of coal distribution and commercialisation networks, giving rise to railways called “cavaliers” in the coalfield, stations and developed shorelines. These infrastructures forged the landscape of the coalfield in the same way as the pits ands the slag heaps.