First published: 23/07/18.

Ingemar Eriksson 2.5

Nord-Pas De Calais Mining Basin

Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin (Inscribed)

Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin by Els Slots

The slag heaps very visible when moving around in the Lens area gives a remaining memory. About 250 och around 350 made ones are left. There are som many aspects of this area as we can find belfries and WW1 memories everywhere. 

We come in contact with this WHS when visiting Louvre-Lens. This monumental new museum is built on the site of an old coal-mine. Some of it`s history shown in museum. Next to museum site is a complex of houses intended for miners who are inscribed in the WHS area and it is easy to stroll around in that area when having reached Louvre-Lens.

Also the monumental destroying of the area in WW1 gives a backdrop for the need for Germany to pay a lot for that destruction in later agreements. Now is 100 years since WW1 ended and there are not many traces left of the war except the many monuments and graves that are kind of everywhere. Farmland is fixed but if you go up to Canadian memorial place Wimy outside of Lens, we can see fields that are left as they were 1918 and just natural erosion has tried to level out the ground in the battlezone. Perhaps this is not in the WHS but it is very much in this area and we really can't move much in this WHS before seeing some WW1 memorial. I generally agree with the review of NAN 2017, also why the Belgian mines are not in the same WHS, as with the belfries who are cross border.

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