Former Cévennes coalfield headframe and engine house, surviving in a zone artisanale on the former Ladrecht colliery site.
The Mines des Cévennes - Puits Fontanes is the surviving remnant of the Fontanes-Destival colliery complex at Ladrecht, on the commune of Saint-Martin-de-Valgalgues, forming part of the concession of Rochebelle in the southern Cévennes coalfield. Artisanal exploitation in the area preceded the establishment of an industrial shaft, and the puits Fontanes was sunk between 1874 and 1878, entering service in 1884 at a depth of 411 metres and a diameter of 4.3 metres. It was modernised from 1929 onward with a new steel lattice headframe 35 metres in height and electrification of its winding engine.
A second, deeper shaft — the puits Destival — was sunk from 1938 and entered service in 1950, with a reinforced concrete extraction tower 67 metres tall reaching 822 metres depth. From that point, the puits Fontanes was retained solely for ventilation and service duties. The site held the world record for the number of instantaneous carbon dioxide outbursts.
A 13-month strike with underground occupation between May 1980 and June 1981 — the longest such action in European mining history — preceded the final closure of the site in 1984-85. The concrete tower of the puits Destival was demolished in 2002. The steel lattice headframe of the puits Fontanes, the winding engine house, and associated administrative buildings were preserved.
In 1999, the Communauté d'Agglomération Alès-Cévennes redeveloped the former colliery site as the Pôle Mécanique d'Alès.
The Fontanes-Destival colliery complex at Ladrecht, on the commune of Saint-Martin-de-Valgalgues, stands approximately three kilometres north-west of Alès and formed the last major operational site of the southern Cévennes coalfield. The concession of Rochebelle, of which the site forms part, has roots extending back to at least the thirteenth century, when monks of the abbey of Cendras extracted coal from surface outcrops on their lands. The earliest industrial development of the Ladrecht area involved artisanal workings that continued until 1872, when a complete extraction works — including the shaft, screening facilities, a washing plant, and coal agglomeration equipment — was installed and linked to the railway network.
The puits Fontanes was sunk between 1874 and 1878, reaching a final depth of 411.34 metres with a diameter of 4.30 metres. It entered service in 1884. During its early operational life, the shaft used a steam winding engine.
In 1896, a catastrophic instantaneous outburst of carbon dioxide at the puits Fontanes killed 24 men. The site would accumulate the world record for the number of such outbursts. From 1923 onward, the colliery underwent significant modernisation.
A new steel lattice headframe 35 metres in height was erected, and the winding machinery was converted from steam to electric power drawing on the new thermal power station at Rochebelle. By 1929, the winding engine was an electrified Venot machine with a bicylindroconical drum. In 1929, the old surface treatment buildings of 1888 were progressively replaced by new structures.
Sinking of the puits Destival was begun in 1938 by the Compagnie des Houillères de Rochebelle. It was a shaft of six metres in diameter, ultimately reaching 822.20 metres in depth, equipped with a reinforced concrete extraction tower 67 metres tall. The puits Destival did not enter service until 1950, after nationalisation under the decree of 28 June 1946, which created the Houillères de Bassin des Cévennes.
Its winding engine was a Venot machine with a Koepe pulley of seven metres diameter driven by two motors totalling 2,450 horsepower. Two landing levels were equipped underground, at 185 and 600 metres. From the entry into service of the puits Destival, the puits Fontanes was retained exclusively for ventilation and service, and all production from the southern sector of the basin was concentrated at Ladrecht, with underground links to the Rochebelle workings at Alès and the former Nord d'Alès workings.
In 1945, approximately 900 workers were employed; by 1962, following concentration of production, the workforce had grown to 1,580. In 1957, output reached 380,000 tonnes; by 1959 it had risen to nearly 650,000 tonnes. On 5 May 1980, the miners of Ladrecht began a strike in opposition to the exploitation of the Ladrecht panel.
The strike lasted thirteen months until 10 June 1981, with sustained underground occupation — it was the longest strike of this type in European mining history. A large symbolic mural painted in 1981 in solidarity with the miners on the concrete retaining wall of the upper colliery yard remained a visible presence on the site until it was partly destroyed by a collapse. The puits Destival was closed and the site shut in 1984-85, marking the final end of underground coal extraction in the Cévennes.
The reinforced concrete tower of the puits Destival, by then heavily degraded and presenting risks of falling concrete, was demolished in 2002. The winding wheel from the Destival tower was subsequently placed on a roundabout in Saint-Martin-de-Valgalgues as a memorial. The Communauté de Communes purchased the site in 1989.
In 1999, the Communauté d'Agglomération Alès-Cévennes completed the transformation of the former colliery yard into the Pôle Mécanique d'Alès. The steel lattice headframe of the puits Fontanes, the winding engine house in stone, the administrative offices in reinforced concrete, and associated buildings were preserved as witnesses to the industrial and social history of the site, and are now used to house business offices.
