Abildå Lignite Mine

The route through the lignite mine

Abildå Lignite Mine is located on Timringvej between Abildå and Trehøje. The nature trail around the area is approximately 2 km long and leads through the former mining site past a recreated lignite pit, the exhibition building and old machinery. The trail is not accessible for people with disabilities; however, the other facilities can be reached via a short gravel road from the car park.

Lignite with shovel and wheelbarrow

The recreated pit is the site's clearest illustration of how lignite was extracted. Former lignite workers have built a small excavation area where shovels, wheelbarrows and manual labour make the process easy to understand without lengthy explanations. Special live demonstrations also show coal drilling, removal of overburden, winch excavation, sorting and a reconstructed tipper-wagon train.

The site conveys, among other things, the excavation methods used during the Second World War. The simple tools and heavy machinery therefore do not stand as isolated museum objects, but as traces of a workplace in sand and clay.

When the holes became nature

Mining left behind mounds of sand and clay and deep holes. Some pits were later planted with conifers, while others developed into small lakes. Mosses, lichens, heather, insects, frogs and toads have found habitats among the industrial traces. What is distinctive about Abildå is precisely this mix: uneven terrain, rusty machinery and new nature tell the same story.