Musée de la Mine de Saint Pierre La Palud

Useful Information

Location:	1 Rue du Musée, 69210 Saint-Pierre-la-Palud. 25 km north-west of Lyon, 25 km south of Villefranche-sur-Saône. (45.792893, 4.610517)
Open:	MAR to NOV Sat, Sun, Hol 14-18, last entry 16:30. [2023]
Fee:	Adults EUR 6.50, Children (3-16) EUR 5, Children (0-2) free, Students (-26) EUR 5. Groups (20+): Adults EUR 5.50, Children (3-16) EUR 4. [2023]
Classification:	Iron Mine Copper Mine Replica Underground Mine
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided, D=2 h. Audioguide
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:
Address:	Musée de la Mine de Saint Pierre La Palud, 1 Rue du Musée, 69210 Saint-Pierre-la-Palud, Tel: +33-474-70-39-66, Cell: +33-641-01-66-62. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1840	copper mine opened.
1972	mine closed.
1983	museum opened to the public.
1986	new fossil exhibition with ichtyosaur opened.
2002	third mineral exhibition room created.

Geology

There are sulfide copper and iron ores, the main ore is pyrite. So it was mined for copper, iron and sulfur, which is the origin of the Lyon chemical industry.

Description

Musée de la Mine de Saint Pierre La Palud (Mining Museum of Saint Pierre La Palud) is named after its location, the village Saint Pierre La Palud or Saint-Pierre-la-Palud. It is located on the former iron and copper pyrite mining site. The mine buildings with the steel headframe of Puit Perret (Perret Shaft) are called Ancienne Mine de Saint Pierre La Palud (Former mine at Saint Pierre La Palud) are located 450 m to the north at the Chem. du Puit Perret. The mine was actually named Mines de Sain Bel (Sain Bel Mine). It's worth to visit the site for the headframe, and the automobile museum in one of the former mine buildings. There is the engine room and its huge winches and motors, the crushers, inclined plane, workshops, and the slag heap.

The mining museum is a modernized former mine building located at 1 Rue du Musée, with a small mining exhibition with mine train carriages and other heavy machinery on the surrounding lawn. Inside there is an exhibition with numerous mining-related exhibits, including tools, machinery, models, but also documents and photographs. There is an exhibition with almost a hundred mining lamps, some of which are very rare, like the 16- or 8-sided Rave type lamps. There are presentations of laboratory, surveying, and rescue equipment. The museum also has a mine passage with wooden support beams, which is a reconstruction or mine replica. The original passages are not accessible anymore.

The museum has the most important collection of minerals in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region. Quite unique are magnificent samples of chessylites and azurites from local deposits. But there is also a huge exhibition of minerals from all over the world. And there is an exhibition of fossils. In 1986, a palaeontology room was created to house the ichthyosaur found in the Lafarge cement quarry. At this time, the fossils were moved to this new room and the whole exhibition restructured. The mineral collection was donated by numerous local collectors and institutions and is called collection de référence des Amis de la Mine (Friends of the Mine reference collection). It has two rooms with 29 display cases showing 810 minerals, arranged according to the chemical classification of minerals: native elements, oxides, silicates, carbonates, and sulphides. Two showcases are dedicated to French minerals, and two others to minerals from Chessy Les Mines (Rhône). There is a collection of pyromorphites from the Farges mine (Corrèze). Three showcases display fluorites.

A third exhibition room contains the personal collections of local mineral collectors which were donated to the Friends of the Mine. There are the collections of Maxime Dardillac (2002), Robert Seguin (2009), Armand Carrier (2012), André Recordon (2015), and Claude Laurent (2016). In total the museum has more than 2,650 specimens, displayed in 41 showcases.

The museum is visited self-guided, and has audioguides in different languages. It's also possible to take guided tours, including special tours, for example, a tour for school children.