In the village of Vinařice, near the city of Kladno and about 30 kilometres northwest of Prague in the Czech Republic, the mine 'Důl Mayrau' is located.
The Prague Iron Company began digging a pit in 1874 and three years later the shaft was 515,2 meters deep. In the end the pit was 527 meters deep.  At that time the Kladno district was the largest coal supplier in the Czech Republic producing about 34 million tons of coal over a period of more than 120 years.

While the mine was still in operation during the 1970s there were already thoughts about creating an open-air-museum of mining at this location. It took about 20 years for this to come to fruition with the museum opening in 1994 during its 120th anniversary.

In 1998 the mine closed for good. However, the mine’s premises look like the people who worked there left only yesterday. You are able to visit the chain-locker rooms, baths, machine room and the buildings with cracked walls. A Ringhoffer Smichow company steam machine, in Art Nouveau style, dating from 1905 still remains in one of the buildings and is still working.

The complex indeed looks like it did on its 'last working day'.