The Nachtigall colliery is located at the entrance to the idyllic Muttental valley in Witten. This is where Ruhr mining began more than 300 years ago.
The Nachtigall colliery in Witten experienced its heyday around 1850 as one of the first deep mines in the mining district. In its exhibition, the Industrial Museum shows how arduous the journey into the depths was. The highlight of the visit is a guided tour through the Nachtigall tunnel. Equipped with helmets, visitors can walk through the low corridors of this visitor mine at ground level to a real coal seam. In front of the entrance, a faithfully reconstructed shaft shows small-scale mining in the Ruhr Valley after 1945. On board a full-size wooden sailing ship, the Ruhrnachen, the history of shipbuilding and coal shipping on the Ruhr comes to life. The later use of the colliery, which closed in 1892, is explored under the vault of a brick kiln in the former Dünkelberg brickworks. The Nachtigall Colliery Industrial Museum is the ideal starting point for hikes through the Muttental valley, one of the earliest examples of near-surface coal mining in the Ruhr region, with its signposted mining trail.
