Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Centre historique minière came into being in the 1970s when the management of the Houillères du Bassin du Nord-Pas-de-Calais, under the leadership of its secretary general, decided to preserve an emblematic site to transmit the memory of nearly three centuries of mining. The Delleye pit in Lewarde, active from 1931 to 1971 and employing up to 1,000 miners, was chosen in 1973 for its central location and intact industrial heritage. As a result, equipment and archives of the other pits are transferred to them as they are closed.

The management association of the centre was founded in 1982 with the support of the Houillères, the Ministry of Culture, and the regional and departmental authorities. Opened to the public in 1984, the site became a unique conservatory of 8 hectares, comprising 8,000 m2 of industrial buildings, 15,000 objects, 2.5 km of archives and 500,000 iconographic documents. Since 2016, he has carried the status of EPCC (Public Institution of Cultural Cooperation).

The centre combines an immersive museum (visits guided by former miners), a resource centre, and a scientific centre dedicated to energy history. Its permanent exhibitions reconstruct the lives of miners, extraction techniques, and the role of animals like horses. A collection of works of art and decorative objects completes this testimony, making the site the largest museum of the mine in France and the most frequented in the region.

Ranked among the thematic fields of decorative arts, ethnology, history and nature sciences, the Mining Historical Centre plays a key role in preserving the industrial culture of the mining basin. Its multidisciplinary approach, combining technical, social and scientific, makes it a reference point for understanding the impact of the mine on the territory and its inhabitants.

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