Belgium

Prayon manufactures an extensive range of phosphate and fluorine products that are used in food applications, industrial applications, fertilizers and other applications such as pharmaceuticals. Their Engis plant sprawls alongside the Meause to the west of Liège.

Coal washery at Beringen, closed in 1989.

Zolder was the last Belgian pit to close, in 1992. The machine hall and one headgear survives, whilst the power house has been converted to office and exhibition use and some of the processing buildings have also found alternative use. There were once two shafts with associated headgears in a row in front of the long machine hall.

Founded by the company Siderurgie Maritime NV (Sidmar) which was formed in July 1962, the Ghent steelworks stands alongside the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal which is capable of handling Panamax size ships bringing iron ore and coal. The two blast furnaces were blown in during 1967 and 1968 and have a total capacity over 4million tonnes pa. It is now under the ownership of Arcelor Mittal.

Storage silos at the BP Ineos polypropylene plant at Westerlo.

Cooling tower at the Arcelor Mittal steelworks, Seraing.

Historic view of stone being charged into a limekiln at Ampsin, Liège. This is a large commercial running kiln 11 metres deep and 6 metres in diameter. The pot is covered by a steel lid with a series of doors that can be raised for charging as seen here.

Cable manufacturer Nexans has a factory in Charleroi just across the railway from the mothballed steelworks.

Gothic colliery at Cheratte close to Liege. The first mine development here was in 1860 and the Malakow winding tower over the 170m deep No.1 shaft was completed in 1907. The adjacent buildings housed the baths and offices. Mining ended here in 1977 and the site was declared a historic monument in 1982, since when it has sat derelict and decaying.

Mallieue Limekilns. These huge commercial running kilns could handle large quantities of stone. The inside of the pot absolutely dwarfed the tree that had somehow found its way inside. This view is taken through the draw hole into which I had climbed for a better look. The exterior of these kilns is in the next image .

A short distance from Liege and close to the Meuse there is a large and thriving quarry industry exploiting the limestone reserves in the area. There are several banks of large disused running kilns, dating, I think, from the early twentieth century. The finished product from this set would have been loaded into railway wagons on a siding where the street lamps now stand.

The Ghent steelworks produces c5 million tonnes of flat steel steel a year. Much of the production goes to motor manufacturers. The two blast furnaces were completed in 1967 and 1968 whilst the works was being constructed for then owners Sidmar.

The Houthalen Collliery in the Limburg region of Belgium was operated along with that at Heusden-Zolder in its later life and closed with it in 1992. What remains is rather pointless, as the headframes are entirely out of context without the rest of the buildings that were once here. The scene kept making me think of the tripods in H G Wells' War of the Worlds. This is what it used to look like .

The Beringen colliery was closed in 1989 and is now a museum with some parts open to visitors. Other bits are less accessible. Best viewed large .

Belgium no longer has a coal industry and the last pit to close was that at Zolder, in the Limburg region, which stopped work in 1992. The machine hall and one headgear survives, whilst the power house has been converted to office and exhibition use and some of the processing buildings have also found alternative use. There were once two shafts with associated headgears in a row in front of the long machine hall.

The Beringen colliery was closed in 1989 and is now a museum with some parts open to visitors. Other bits are less accessible.

Closed since 1989, the shaft top at Beringen still looks good.

Shaft top at the Beringen Colliery. Full tubs would have come off the cages at this side and head for the washery behind the camera.