Protected industrial monument in Moers-Hochstraß retaining the oldest surviving double-strut headframe in the Ruhr, with original winding house open to visitors.
Schachtanlage Rheinpreußen 4 is a former hard coal colliery in Moers-Hochstraß, North Rhine-Westphalia, developed between 1900 and 1904 as a satellite shaft of the Zeche Rheinpreußen, the large left-bank Rhine coalfield established by Franz Haniel from 1851. Sinking began on 15 September 1900 and coal production commenced in 1904, reaching almost one million tonnes annually within a few years. The installation was equipped from the outset with a double-strut steel lattice headframe and electric winding machinery, and a coking plant was erected on site.
Production continued until 1962, when the new central shaft Rheinpreußen IX at Moers-Utfort assumed winding duties. Schacht 4 then served as a ventilation and water management shaft until it was finally backfilled in 1990 and the site decommissioned. The surviving surface structures — the 48-metre double-strut headframe, the winding house with its 1906 electric winding engine, and the pithead buildings in neo-Gothic brickwork — were listed as protected monuments in 1989 and restored between 1992 and 2000.
The site forms part of the Route der Industriekultur and is managed by the Grafschafter Museums- und Geschichtsverein.
The origins of Schachtanlage Rheinpreußen 4 lie in the vast coalfield assembled by the Ruhrorter merchant Franz Haniel, who initiated exploratory drilling on his estate near Homberg on 21 July 1851. A successful bore at 174.58 metres in May 1854 provided the basis for a concession application, and the Grubenfeld Rheinpreußen was formally granted on 17 February 1857, initially covering 9,042 hectares of the left bank of the Rhine. The operation was constituted as a bergrechtliche Gewerkschaft with 1,000 Kuxen by family resolution and notarial act in April and May 1868.
The earliest shafts — Schacht I at Homberg and Schacht II — required decades of difficult sinking through water-bearing strata and quicksand, with Schacht I not reaching the coal measures until 1877 after twenty years of work. By 1880 the colliery employed 711 men and produced 135,685 tonnes of coal annually, a figure that grew steadily but remained modest given the enormous size of the concession field. The appointment of Heinrich Pattberg as Generaldirektor of the Gewerkschaft Rheinpreußen in 1899 marked the beginning of the most expansive phase of the enterprise.
Pattberg oversaw the development of two large new satellite installations in the northern part of the field: Schacht 4 at Hochstraß in what is now Moers, and Schacht 5 at Utfort. Teufarbeiten for Schacht 4 began on 15 September 1900. The shaft was sunk using a method developed by Pattberg himself: stoß borers replaced the conventional sack borers, the central rod string was configured as a mammoth pump to remove material swept to the centre, and Pattberg's compound lining method was applied to achieve substantially stronger shaft wall construction.
The coal measures were reached at 131.8 metres depth in December 1902 with an inner diameter of 5.3 metres; the provisional final depth at that stage was 330 metres. By 1903 and 1904 underground connections had been established between Schacht 4 and both Schacht 3 and Schacht 5 via the 200-metre and 300-metre levels. Coal production from Schacht 4 began in 1904, initially drawn from the 200-metre level for the western workings and the 300-metre level for the eastern workings.
The first shaking conveyor, 100 metres in length, was introduced at the time of commissioning. Eastern winding operations were fully in service by September 1904. The installation had been designed as an independent hoisting plant from the outset, equipped with a double-strut headframe for both coal winding and men riding, and a coking plant was established on the site.
In 1905 the coal preparation plant began receiving output from Schacht 5 as well, and shaking conveyors operating over lengths of up to three chutes were introduced. By 1906 production at Schacht 4 alone already exceeded the combined output of Schächte I, II and III at Homberg, and in that year the entire Rheinpreußen enterprise employed 8,254 men. The design of the surface installations at Schacht 4 attracted professional admiration: the parallel arrangement of headframe and loading railway, the enclosed walkway allowing miners to pass directly from the shaft top to the wash house without crossing open ground, and the quality of the neo-Gothic brickwork architecture were regarded as a model for contemporary colliery layout.
The shaft was deepened to the 450-metre level in 1921, having been driven below the 300-metre level in the Flöz Präsident seam. In 1923 the shaft was broken upward to connect with the 300-metre level. To accommodate the introduction of a seven-hour shift and to reduce the time required for men riding, six-deck cages were installed in 1920 and 1921.
The colliery continued to develop in scale through the 1920s and 1930s. After the Second World War the bergrechtliche Gewerkschaft was converted into an Aktiengesellschaft on 31 October 1951. Rationalisation measures followed in the 1950s: in 1954 the Kokerei at Schacht 4 was taken out of service in favour of a new central coking plant at Schachtanlage Pattberg, and in the same year a part of the southern field was leased to the Zeche Diergardt on account of its anthracite deposits.
In 1958 the systematic transfer of working faces from the southern areas to the central field began, and Schacht I was backfilled in 1960 as it was no longer required. From November 1950 deepening of Schacht 4 to the 600-metre level had been under way. The electric winding engine installed in the winding house in 1906 remained in service throughout this period, subsequently upgraded: originally a drum machine, it was rebuilt with a friction winding wheel in 1949 and 1950.
The construction of the new central hoisting shaft, Rheinpreußen IX, at Moers-Utfort was completed on 1 July 1962, when Schacht IX entered service and assumed the coal winding previously carried out by Schächte 4 and 5. The cessation of coal production at Schacht 4 was initiated accordingly and completed in 1964 by some accounts and 1962 by others in the consulted sources, with the balance of evidence suggesting 1962 as the effective end of winding and 1964 as the formal operational conclusion. The surface buildings not required for the continued use of Schacht 4 as a ventilation shaft — including the coking plant and the coal preparation plant — were demolished, and in 1972 the associated land was sold to the firm Brabender and to the Stadt Moers.
Schacht 4 itself continued in service as a ventilation and water management shaft assigned to the combined installation Rheinpreußen V/IX. A personal transport connection between Pattberg, Schacht 8 and Schacht 4 was withdrawn on 4 November 1963. On 1 January 1971 the Bergwerk Rheinpreußen was merged with the Verbundbergwerk Pattberg/Rossenray to form the Verbundbergwerk Rheinland.
Rheinpreußen was formally closed on 28 March 1990, creating the Verbundbergwerk Friedrich Heinrich/Rheinland. With the closure of Schachtanlage Rheinpreußen IX in 1991, Schacht 4 was no longer needed for ventilation purposes, was formally decommissioned, and was backfilled in March 1994 according to the restoration documentation of the Grafschafter Museums- und Geschichtsverein, with other sources giving 1990 as the date of final backfilling. The surviving surface structures had been entered into the monument register on 8 May 1989, including the double-strut headframe, the shaft hall, the winding house, the office building, the wash house, and the workshop buildings, as well as the avenue of plane trees leading to the site.
A formal objection by the Bergbau AG Niederrhein was dismissed by the Oberkreisdirektor Wesel. Restoration works began under the management of the Ruhrkohle AG in 1992; in November 1990 the RAG had presented a restoration concept for the headframe specifying that it should not be fully dismantled but repaired in sections under protective wrapping. Restoration of the headframe was completed in early 1994 at a cost of approximately 3.2 million Deutschmarks, involving the replacement of 44 tonnes of corroded and deformed steelwork, the installation of 23 tonnes of new structural steel, the dismantling, repair and reinstallation of 30 tonnes of existing steelwork, and the making of 5,400 rivet connections.
In September 1997 the Ruhrkohle AG sold the winding house to a private company, with a permanent right of use reserved in the purchase contract in favour of the Landesstiftung NRW, which transferred this right to the Grafschafter Museums- und Geschichtsverein (GMGV). Restoration of the winding house, which had remained in its 1906 condition, was carried out by the GMGV with financial support from the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, the Land NRW, and the Nordrhein-Westfalen-Stiftung. The restoration was completed in September 2000, and the winding house was opened to the public.
The 700-horsepower electric winding engine, in service from 1906 to 1990, is preserved in the winding house along with a collection of over 300 miners' lamps and a reconstructed underground exhibition gallery. The 48-metre double-strut steel lattice headframe is recognised as the oldest surviving example of this construction type in the Ruhr coalfield. The site forms part of the Route der Industriekultur and is maintained on a voluntary basis by the GMGV.