Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Ledoux pit, operated by the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin, was dug between 1901 and 1902 in Condé-sur-l'Escaut, in the North. Work began in October 1900, using the technique of freezing the land to run through the wells. The first well began on July 6, 1901, the second on June 2, 1902. Coal production started on 16 July 1905, with an initial capacity of 450 tonnes per day. The pit is named in tribute to Charles Ledoux, director of the Compagnie d'Anzin.

During the First World War, the pit was bombed and damaged, but resumed operations on June 3, 1919. Its production grew rapidly, reaching a record 562 979 tons in 1939. During World War II, a flood in 1940 temporarily interrupted extraction. After the nationalization of the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin in 1946, the Ledoux pit joined the Group of Valenciennes and became a headquarters of major concentration in the 1950s.

Modernized in the 1950s, the Ledoux pit saw its surface installations transformed, with new metal chimes and engine rooms. A grain washer was built in 1955, and a ventilation pit was created in the Bonsecours forest to exploit the Saint Georges vein. The pit gradually concentrated the activities of nearby pits, such as Saint-Pierre and Vieux-Condé, before finally stopping its extraction on December 30, 1988. The wells were filled in 1989, and most of the facilities were destroyed, with the exception of well No. 1, which was listed as historic monuments in 1992.

The site is now converted into a natural space, and the remaining straddling, as well as three burrows and several mining towns, have been listed as a World Heritage Site of Unesco since 2012. These elements bear witness to the industrial and social history of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining basin and its architectural and landscape heritage.

Burials 195, 195A and 196, as well as mining towns such as the garden city of Solitude and Acacia, are an integral part of this heritage. These today wooded burrows and the renovated towns illustrate the conversion of old mining sites into living and natural spaces. The rigging of well No. 1, built in 1951 by Delattre and Frouard, remains the symbol of this era of modernization and industrialization.

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