Sunday

Zeche Hugo


Zeche Hugo was a coal mine in Gelsenkirchen in western Germany. The "Gewerkschaft des Steinkohlenbergwerks Hugo" was founded in 1873 and named after the man behind it, Hugo Honigmann. In 1875 the construction of the first shaft was finished and mining could start. By the end of 1909 there were 5 shafts in use.
In the last years around 5000 people were employed, mining around 3.5 million tonnes of coal.




In 1997 mining at Zeche Hugo was stopped. Between 97 and 2004 the shafts were filled and most buildings demolished. Today only the administration block and shaft 2 are still standing. Whilst the admin block is open to the elements, shaft 2 has been converted into a small museum and venue. 


Apart from the two buildings, only the hill of excavation material reminds of the 127 years of mining. Mine gas from the bottom of the shafts is also pumped and burned locally for power generation.
For more info's and lots of old photos click here

 





The admin block served two purposes. The first part of the building housed the changing rooms.
The main feature of this is the Kaue with the thousands of cages hanging from the ceiling. These were used by the miners to store their clean cloths in the bottom part and the valuables in the top one. Once filled they could be pulled up and locked in place.
This was a space saving way of storing the belongings safely and also made it possible to spot whether all miner had returned.
The Kaue is surrounded by shower rooms and more storing facilities. Upstairs is another much smaller Kaue and also smaller showers.




Smaller Kaue Upstairs

Torch and Filter storage



 The rest of the building housed the offices. Most of these are trashed, only few original features can be found nowadays.






Thanks to savoonga for showing us around

6 comments:

  1. That is fantastic mate, I've sealed the deal and ordered an 8mm too.

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  2. nice one, you will not regret it!

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  3. REally nice set of images. Good to see something differnt from the birdcages.

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  4. Wow! Very nice picset you brought from there.
    I like your pics very much.
    And nice to see, it's still doable. Think I have to revisit it soon ;)

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  5. moin, sieht genial aus da in der kaue

    sag mal, haste zufällig nen paar geile lokations in london parat? bin demnächst mal für nen paar tage da. schwarzbefahrer.com@googlemail.com
    greets darius

    ReplyDelete