Heide quarry, Valkenburg aan de Geul, Limburg, Netherlandsi

Regional Level Types
Heide quarry	Quarry
Valkenburg aan de Geul	Municipality
Limburg	Province
Netherlands	Country

The Heide quarry or Groeve de Heide is a marl quarry in the Dutch municipality of Valkenburg aan de Geul in South Limburg. The underground quarry is located west of Valkenburg on the Plenkertstraat in Plenkert on the edge of the Polferbos slope forest on the northern edge of the Margraten Plateau in the transition to the Geuldal. At the site, the plateau plunges steeply for several meters.

About 200 meters to the west are the Groeve Einde Plenkertweg, Pompstation Heytgracht and the Carolus quarry and to the east are the flint mines of Valkenburg.

Above ground, there are five bunkers in the Polferbos forest that belonged to the complex of the underground factory in the Second World War (see below).

Until the 19th and 20th centuries, the quarry was used by block crushers for limestone extraction. It was also used as a mushroom farm.

In 1910 and 1912, the Roman Catacombs, a replica of the Catacombs of Rome, constructed under the direction of architect Pierre Cuypers, were constructed in part of the Heide quarry.

Before the Second World War, a mushroom farm was located in the Heide quarry. The mushroom growers probably constructed five air shafts for the ventilation of the nursery.

In 1944, the Germans built an underground war factory in the Heide quarry during the Second World War, for which bunkers were built on top of the hill. The war factory was equipped to employ 600 people on the day shift and 300 on the night shift. To tackle the problem of humidity and temperature, a climate control system with boilers was installed in the quarry so that the factory could be heated to room temperature. For this heating, a large boiler house bunker was built on the Cauberg in which the large heating boilers were placed. Via a newly constructed zigzag shaft of 46 meters high, one could reach the large engine room in the quarry. This shaft also served as an emergency exit in case the entrances located on the Plenkertstraat became blocked. A ventilation system was also installed to extract spent air and supply fresh air. A transformer room was also carved out underground. The spent air from the transformer room and heating system in the quarry was extracted via an (existing) exhaust duct. A large bunker was built above this drainage channel (bunker C). Furthermore, bunkers were built on top of four (already existing) ventilation shafts (three of which were mushroom-shaped) to prevent enemy projectiles from entering the quarry. They wanted to build a bunker in front of the main entrance to the quarry on the Plenkertstraat. This bunker was never built due to a shortage of building materials, but a recess was cut into the marl wall where the bunker could have been built.

On June 23, 1988, a major collapse occurred in the Heide quarry, causing approximately half of the quarry to collapse. The shaft from the boiler house bunker was lost, as was the engine room in the quarry.

In 1995, the boiler house on the Cauberg was demolished and the Holland Casino building was built on the site.

The Heide quarry is a medium-sized quarry of two and a half hectares.

The manager of the quarry is the Municipality of Valkenburg. In 2017, the quarry was assessed for safety and approved.

Other Databases

Wikipedia:	https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegroeve_(Valkenburg)
Wikidata ID:	Q71517001

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