When standing at Bispberg and watching its ancient looking and beautifully restored wooden buildings of 1889 it is very hard to imagine that the place was in full operation until 1967, when some 600 years of mining history was brought to an end. Although wood was a very common building material for mining buildings, it simply gives such a pre-historic appearance. The thought that a mining worker went home at night and watched TV is hard to digest. A claim that cars have been parked outside the mine when it was operational seems just as unlikely as if Karl Marx had watched Star Trek on TV.

It is one of these places where it becomes apparent that it was a very hard time to be a mine worker. That safety and the basic needs of a human being had not been catered for. Left on a stand in one of the buildings, a single ancient stretcher has been left. A chilling reminder of how many mine workers were maimed and killed at a time when even the most basic safety equipment was non-existent. A reminder and thought to the orphans and widows who were left to poverty and misery, even less than hundred years ago.
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