Mining at Konnerud on the outskirts of Drammen began in the 16th century, but the first major underground operation started in 1729 when the Cicignon brothers launched full-scale extraction. In 1736, Count Frederik Anton Wedel Jarlsberg took over, giving the works a grandiose name: Det Jarlsbergske Solvhaltige Blye- og Kobberverk, the Jarlsbergian Silver-bearing Lead and Copper Works. At its peak in the 1750s the mine employed 350 workers, one of the largest workplaces in the Drammen area. Mining ceased in 1770 and the entire works was sold at auction in 1777.
The oldest tunnels used fire-setting: wood fires heated the rock face, then cold water was thrown on, causing the stone to crack. The site is considered one of the world's ten richest mineral fields with 126 different rock and mineral types, famous among collectors for beautiful amethysts, fluorites, and calcites. Five distinct mining periods spanned from 1729 to 1913, with a final wartime investigation in 1941 to 1942 concluding that reopening was not viable.
In 1991, the Konnerudverket Foundation began rebuilding the site as a living museum. A small group of volunteers invested 90,000 hours of unpaid work over two decades. They salvaged an Atlas air locomotive found as a wreck in a stone fill in Surnadalen, drove 120 miles each way for seven consecutive weekends to excavate it, recovered 800 metres of railway track, and carried and cleaned 15,000 bricks by hand to construct new buildings. When operational, a narrow-gauge mine railway carried visitors 500 metres into a tunnel to an underground cavern. The museum's future remains uncertain after funding was cut, so visitors should verify current status before making the trip.
The oldest tunnels used fire-setting: wood fires heated the rock face, then cold water was thrown on, causing the stone to crack. The site is considered one of the world's ten richest mineral fields with 126 different rock and mineral types, famous among collectors for beautiful amethysts, fluorites, and calcites. Five distinct mining periods spanned from 1729 to 1913, with a final wartime investigation in 1941 to 1942 concluding that reopening was not viable.
In 1991, the Konnerudverket Foundation began rebuilding the site as a living museum. A small group of volunteers invested 90,000 hours of unpaid work over two decades. They salvaged an Atlas air locomotive found as a wreck in a stone fill in Surnadalen, drove 120 miles each way for seven consecutive weekends to excavate it, recovered 800 metres of railway track, and carried and cleaned 15,000 bricks by hand to construct new buildings. When operational, a narrow-gauge mine railway carried visitors 500 metres into a tunnel to an underground cavern. The museum's future remains uncertain after funding was cut, so visitors should verify current status before making the trip.
