From black to green

Until the early 1960s, the Eastern Mining Region was a real industrial monoculture, with about 90% of male industrial workers directly or indirectly involved in mining! Until the mid-1960s, Kerkrade had no industrial sites other than the Domaniale Mine, the Willem-Sophia Mine and the Wilhelmina state mine.
Besides the coal mines and supply companies, there was barely no industrial activity in the old mining town, and little in the way of services either. Mining was the motor behind the economy in Kerkrade.
When Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Den Uyl wrote his first Mine Memorandum, two new business areas were under development in the Municipality of Kerkrade: Spekholzerheide and Dentgenbach.

In late July 1966, Den Uyl decided that the Domaniale Mine should be closed first, following a study that mainly compared the expected future profitability of the Domaniale Mine and the Willem-Sophia mine.
The last wagon of anthracite left the Domaniale mine via the Willem II shaft on 29 August 1969.
At exactly 3 PM on Friday afternoon, 18 June 1971, the last major structure of the Domaniale Mine was demolished.
The official demolition by the company Couwenbergh N.V. started in January 1970, more than four months after the last wagon with Domaniale anthracite had been brought to the surface.
In the 1970s, the Dutch government paid little attention to the historical value of the country’s industrial heritage. They wanted to clear the mine sites as quickly as possible, to make way for new industries and residential areas.
The last characteristic row of miners’ and supervisors’ houses to be demolished was the community in Nieuwstraat 118 to 133. Two years after the closure of the Domaniale Mine, the mine site on Nieuwstraat looked like a sterile moonscape, with random chunks of concrete and pieces of iron sticking out of the ground.
A new residential area with around 450 social homes was planned for the former industrial site, complete with local facilities such as schools, shops, parks and sports fields, according to the Domaniale Park Plan. It included an area for walking and recreation on and around Beerenbosch, the slagheap.

The SSO (Partnership for the Remediation of the Eastern Mining Area Urban Region – a supra-municipal consultation body) directed the transition from Black to Green, with 750 hectares of former mine site in South Limburg being given a new purpose. The establishment of this consultation body was one of the conditions for obtaining cash set aside for grants under the Dutch Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning’s Contributions to Reconstruction and Remediation Plans Decree. Another condition was that the remediation operation had to be completed within 10 years.

The first houses appeared on the Domaniale site, but the ambitious Domaniale Park Plan had since been watered down to an average Dutch neighbourhood with residential areas. The streets were named after coal seams and fractures in Earth’s crust in the concession area of the old abbey mines of Kloosterrade (Leyendecker, Finefrau, Athwerk, etc.).

The new Structuurweg Gracht, currently Domaniale Mijnstraat, was constructed on the route of the former mine track to Spekholzerheide. It required various structures to be demolished, including farmer Kroonen’s Hamhof dairy farm on Baamstraat (mid-1972).
Where the mine site and surrounding houses covered with mine dust once stood, there are now residential areas with lots of greenery. Only the Nulland shaft remains on Domaniale Mijnstraat, as a monument to the old mine.