Former Ruhr hard coal colliery whose listed headframes at Schacht 3 and Schacht 4 and associated machine house survive as heritage monuments in a public park and business area in Herten-Langenbochum.
Zeche Schlägel & Eisen in Herten traces its origins to 1873, when the original concession fields were granted, and to 1874, when sinking of Schacht 1 in the Disteln district began. Production commenced in 1877. The mine grew through multiple shaft divisions and in 1898 passed into the ownership of the Bergwerksgesellschaft Hibernia, which expanded it substantially.
The mine reached its maximum annual output of 2.03 million tonnes in 1975, by then operating under the Ruhrkohle AG. On 1 January 1990 it was merged with Zeche Ewald to form the Verbundbergwerk Ewald/Schlägel & Eisen; production ceased at Schacht 3/4/7 by end of June 1990. The remaining shaft functions were successively transferred until all bergbauliche activities ended on 30 April 2000 with the closure of Verbundbergwerk Ewald/Hugo.
All shafts were backfilled by 2000. The headframe over Schacht 3 (1896/97), the oldest surviving Promnitz-type headframe in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the machine house with its twin steam winding engine, passed to the Stiftung Industriedenkmalpflege und Geschichtskultur in 1997. The Schacht 4 headframe (1984/85) followed in 2015.
After restoration the site was opened to guided visits from May 2017 and forms part of the Route der Industriekultur.
The concession fields that would become Zeche Schlägel & Eisen were established by grants from 18 August 1873 and comprised the individual fields Schlägel & Eisen, Schlägel & Eisen XI–XIII, Königin Luise, and Adolf Dach. Coal exploration in the northern Herten area had intensified in the early 1870s during the Gründerzeit; a first borehole near Schloss Herten struck coal on 5 January 1873. In 1874 a society was formed to establish a hard coal mine in Herten, and sinking of Schacht 1 began in the Disteln district the same year.
Production began in 1877, though output was relatively modest in the early years due to unfavourable geology; the symbolic annual figure of 100,000 tonnes was not reached until 1886. In 1890 Schacht 2 was sunk at the Disteln site, which from 1892 provided an additional winding capacity from this first division. In the southern field at Langenbochum, Schacht 3 was sunk in 1897, equipped with a three-legged Promnitz-type headframe which survives to this day.
In 1895 the Zeche Scherlebeck in the Scherlebeck district of Herten was incorporated as a separate site and designated Schlägel und Eisen 5/6; its independent production ended in 1929 and the shafts served thereafter for ventilation. In 1898 the entire mine passed into the ownership of the Bergwerksgesellschaft Hibernia, at that time a state-controlled company. The new owners extended the mine with vigour, sinking three new shafts between 1898 and 1900.
Schacht 4, sunk close to Schacht 3 in Langenbochum, came into service in 1902 as a ventilation shaft. By 1905 annual output had reached nearly one million tonnes. The machine house at the Schacht 3/4 site, with its twin-cylinder steam winding engine, dates from 1896; the engine was replaced by a Zwillingsdampffördermaschine in 1928, which survives in the building and has been restored.
In the late 1930s the mine management decided to create a new central winding shaft. Sinking of Schacht 7 began in 1937, with surface buildings designed by the architect firm of Schupp and Kremmer. Schacht 7 began coal promotion as the main central winding shaft of the mine in early 1941.
At the same time the Schacht 3/4 site's buildings were rebuilt and extended by Schupp and Kremmer, including the machine house, screening plant, shaft house, boiler house, coal washing plant, and administrative and welfare buildings. In 1972/73 the Schächte 3 and 4 received new exhaust ventilation installations for the mine, which remain in place. In 1975 the mine reached its maximum recorded annual output of 2.03 million tonnes.
In 1981 Schacht 4 was backfilled and the old headframe demolished; it was re-sunk with a larger diameter and received a new 64-metre steel box headframe, with five-rope hoisting — an unusual configuration. The new Schacht 4 came into service in 1986 as the central winding shaft. Under the Ruhrkohle AG from the late 1960s, Zeche Schlägel & Eisen was operated as a key production site with about 3,000 employees at its peak.
On 1 January 1990 it was merged with Zeche Ewald to form the Verbundbergwerk Ewald/Schlägel & Eisen, with production in the northern coalfield simultaneously ended. By end of June 1990 coal hoisting at the Schacht 3/4/7 site ceased; coal won underground was subsequently transported to Zeche Ewald and raised there. From 1 July 1997 the remaining Schlägel & Eisen installations became part of the Verbundbergwerk Ewald/Hugo.
On 30 April 2000 the Verbundbergwerk Ewald/Hugo was closed and all bergbauliche activities at Zeche Schlägel & Eisen came to an end. By 2000 all shafts had been backfilled. Following the end of production in 1990 a partial demolition of the Schacht 3/4/7 site took place in 1991; Schacht 3 was backfilled.
The Schacht 7 headframe was brought down by explosive demolition on 30 October 2013 as part of clearance and land-remediation works that ran between approximately 2012 and 2017. The headframe over Schacht 3, together with the machine house and its winding equipment, had passed into the stewardship of the Stiftung Industriedenkmalpflege und Geschichtskultur in 1997 and the ensemble was entered on the heritage monument list the same year. The Schacht 4 headframe was listed in 2010 and passed to the Stiftung in 2015.
In 2009 the Entwicklungsgesellschaft Schlägel & Eisen was established by the city of Herten and RAG MI to manage redevelopment of the site; funded through Städtebauförderung and GRW grants, the project included approximately 4.7 million euros for the restoration of the headframes and machine house by the Stiftung. The remediation and site development were completed by 2017, with new commercial plots and a public neighbourhood park alongside the retained industrial monuments. Since May 2017 the Stiftung has opened the monument site to guided visits; the Fördergerüst over Schacht 3 is one of the oldest surviving Promnitz-type headframes in North Rhine-Westphalia and among the last surviving three-legged headframes in the Ruhr.
The Schacht 4 headframe is equipped with a five-rope hoisting system, a rarity in German mining. A light installation on the Schacht 4 headframe was installed in 2019. On 16 January 2026 the monument ensemble was transferred to a new private owner.