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Origin and history

The Haus Österreich mine well, also known as the Mathis well, is a historic monument located in Lalaye, Lower Rhine. Dated from the 16th and 18th centuries, it is a well of extraction and deep exhaure 70 to 80 meters, used to evacuate water from the galleries when extracting ore containing lead, copper and silver. Its walls are wooded in pine, and it had a pump system operated by a partially preserved blade wheel.

Mining activity was attested between 1565 and 1572, with a recovery in the 1740s. The well, rediscovered in 1986 after collapses in a barn, revealed a timbering and pump system dated by dendrochronology of 1741-1742. A 1794 document still mentions the mine and its hydraulic system. Ranked in 1997, the site was flooded and protected by a concrete slab after archaeological excavations.

The well is distinguished by its technical architecture: two beams separate the extraction compartments of the corridor from the miners, equipped with ladders connecting 250 cm spaced bearings. Two suck-and-float pump bodies directed the water to a discharge channel connected to a gallery leading to the river. Although the outside hydraulic wheel has disappeared, the oak balance and part of the mechanism remain.

The Princely Archives of Monaco and the National Archives of Paris provide written records of its operation between 1571 and 1778, although the exact dates of commencement and termination of activity remain unknown. Today, the well is inaccessible, covered with a concrete trap under private property, at 57 rue Principale (or rue de Charbes) in Lalaye.

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