An underground route in the former Royal Fryderyk Mine in Tarnowskie Góry, inscribed on the UNESCO list, with a section travelled by boat and an open-air museum of steam engines.
The Silver Mine in Tarnowskie Góry is an underground tourist route in the former workings of the Royal Fryderyk Mine. Since 2004 it has been part of the Monument of History Tarnowskie Góry, and since July 2017 part of the inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List: "Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and its Underground Water Management System". The mine is also one of the four stars of the Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Voivodeship and, since 2014, an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
The name of the town comes from the Old Polish word "gory", which meant mines or shafts. According to a semi-legendary story, the first lump of ore was found at the end of the 15th century by a peasant nicknamed Rybka from the settlement of Tarnowice, today Stare Tarnowice. The year 1526, when these lands were granted the privilege of mining freedom, is taken as the date of the town's founding.
In 1528 the mining statute "Ordunek Gorny" was issued, in which the name Tarnowskie Góry appears for the first time. It was written in Polish, Czech and German, and contained 72 articles regulating the work of miners. In the mid-16th century the town was one of the largest centres of lead and silver extraction in this part of Europe. According to the mine's website, the silver even reached China, where it was used to mint coins.
After Prussia took over Silesia, the state decided to rebuild ore mining. Sinking of shafts in the Bobrowniki area began in October 1783. The first lead and silver were found on 16 July 1784 in the Rudolfina shaft, at a depth of 18 m. The state mine was named Fryderyk. About 700 m from the route is the Royal Fryderyk Mine.
The biggest problem was water in the workings, so a steam engine of the Newcomen system, made in Wales, was brought in. It weighed over 30 tonnes and began work in January 1788, the first on Upper Silesia. Guests from all over Europe began to arrive in the town, and their entries went into the "Golden Book" of Tarnowskie Góry, containing nearly 900 names. Józef Wybicki also signed it, on 12 September 1804. The Fryderyk mine operated from 1784 to 1911 or 1912.
It was opened to visitors in 1976. The trail is 1,740 m long, triangular in shape, and runs at a depth of 40 m, linking three shafts: Anioł, Żmija and Szczęść Boże. Tourists see mining faces from the 18th and 19th centuries, former workplaces and tools. Beside the route are three chambers with an area of 500 to 2,000 m², and a section of almost 300 metres is travelled by boat. A constant temperature of 10 °C prevails underground. In 2012 the route was given a soundtrack of the sounds of miners at work, a roof collapse, passing carts and blasting.
The visit lasts about 2 hours and is guided. The mine's website also describes a variant led in Silesian, and a separate route in the Black Trout Adit, with the entrance at the car park on Repecka Street. The boat trip there lasts about an hour, and the minimum age of participants is 4.
In the pithead building there is a multimedia exhibition on history, geology, and techniques of extraction and drainage. It shows old tools, lamps, buckets for hauling ore and a miners' portable toilet. Right next to the building stands the Steam Engine Open-Air Museum with a road roller, a railway crane, a locomobile, steam locomotives, pumps and winding engines. Around the open-air museum runs the Little Open-Air Museum Railway on a route 500 m long.
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