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I was able to visit the mine because Jacquo Silvertant and Jac Diederen were shooting scenes for a DVD-movie on this mine... that created the possibility to visit parts of the former mergel-mine that are not open for public. Among others one of the rooms that were used by the 'Grotsociėteit'. An underground (mens-only) meetingplace where in the 80's of the 19th century the men of the city would meet in secret... discussing important issues in writing, art and music ; eating bread&cheese and drinking wine&beer (I wonder what they discussed :-) ; it is known that these underground societies were not hierarchic and there were no principal discussions on politics and church. The groups were liberal... They were open for any age, profession, for rich and poor. More a club where the members met because they had mutual interests and had a desire for intellectual growth. Remember here that this was in the 1880's... More on this subject can be read in Jacquo's book 'Vreigele bie de BOK: Valkenburg in de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw' (1996, ISBN 90-6190-009 3) on page 44-58. We replayed one of those drinking&eating scenes... hard work that was :-)
Originally this was of course not a coalmine... but a mine for mergel. For touristic reasons they created a mining museum inside the mergelmine on the coalmining of this region. Some pictures of this well done job are above, you should watch the rest for yourself in situ :-) it's a museum wellworth visiting when you're in the region!
A postcard of the Steenkolenmijn in earlier days...
Also see:
steenkolenmijn.nl,
wim schoenmakers,
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