Belgium was one of the first countries to follow England into the industrial revolution and was thus also an early adopter of steam power, particularly in the 19th century. There had long been two major sources of coal available in the country to feed the new engines and the industry and communities they powered: the 'Borinage' in the south centred around Mons and Namur and in the north the 'Campine' centred around Hasselt. Coal in this northern zone was discovered in 1901 and serious production started in 1917 at a time when the importance of the Borinage was beginning to wane. Mines were centred around the small towns of Winterslag, Zwartberg, Beringen, Eisden, Waterschei, Zolder and Houthalen. In common with most sites, the mines led to the rapid development of support industries and services to cater for the needs of the mine itself as well as the growing community of miners, their families and their employers. Sadly, also in common with most mining areas, the Campine sites enjoyed their glory days in the first half of the 20th century after which a slow but inevitable decline set in and closure followed in the late 80's and early 90's as other fuels took precedence.

When I was there I wanted to pick up as much of its long-gone industrial past as I could, with its complex interlocking systems and where so many man-years had been spent in the relentless excavation of this black, dirty, dusty stuff that I knew from our coal-fired stoves at home when I was a child. I found myself with mixed emotions: a sense of sadness that this vast undertaking and its community of hard-working men and women was now gone; yet at the same time relief that our reliance on this deeply polluting fuel and the human cost at which it was won has now largely passed. But thank goodness we still have sites like Beringen to give us some idea of what that past looked like.