The Marble shaft. The basement of the lifting machine is located nearby.

History: The limestone quarry where used from 17th century to beginning of the 18th century. During that time the Gulf of Finland was much more closer to the mine and the limestone where transported to nearby Viapori fortress by sea and used there for building. The quarry is consired to be pretty big in that time. The limestone production was closed down and mine was forgotten until 1930 when Lohjan Kalkki Oy established marble mining in the same area. A shaft was build nearby the quarry and marble mining was started. Marble was used for tables, mosaic stones and construction purposes until 1965 when mine was closed. During its operation period mine employed one to five miners per year.

Location: (From Helsinki) drive along the Itäväylä to east, turn to the Niinisaarentie, turn north to the abandoned junk yard and park your car near of the exercise area. Walk north along jogging track, turn east from first crossing (there is also a ww1 vintage battery located 200m east-south from the crossing in the woods). The track should pass a hill soon and alight towards mine. Look for the pond.

Preliminary intelligence preview: Member of the FUE saw a small notebook about mines in Helsinki area when he was visiting Tikkurila library.

Preliminary actions: Map inspection.

Expedition log and images: 18.08.2002 A great site! Easily to found and many ruins to explorer. The limestone quarry is filled in dark water. The pound could be a suitable even for swimming but nearby closed junk yard and some dumped fridges could make it harmful. Area was full of nice stones (marbles) from mining and I took some of them as a souveniur. The shaft is filled in water and I am note sure could it be still 60m deep. Some of the iron bars were broken and roof of the shaft look very unstabile. I managed to find marble crushing building on to nearby hill, but there was only some basements left. We also find one house basement (never builded), small well, slag piles and a basement for lifting machine. -Willow

Back to main

	The limestone quarry. Six meter deep pond is 60 (180ft) metres long and 28 (85ft) meters width. Note traces from the limestone in the walls.
	The marble shaft seen from the ground level.
	The 60 metres (180ft) deep marble shaft filled with water. Iron bars were added later to prevent people falling in to the shaft. Looks like bars are need of repair.
	Marble pieces. Special drill were used to remove these 90cm diameter pieces from the rock. Many of them can be found nowadays in the vicinity of the pound.
	All what is left from the marble crushing plant on nearby hill. The marble is probably crushed somehow on the top of the hill and then pour downhill in the ramp to the truck.
	Marble crushing plant from the top of the hill. The ramp is gone but ramp hole can be still seen in the concrete