Minas de Carvão da Bezerra

For many years, the best coal in the region was extracted from the Bezerra Mines. The hard work of the miners was dedicated to exploiting the levels of lignites interstratified with marly limestones from the Upper Jurassic. In operation since 1740, with a period of expansion between 1885 and 1888, the mining activity was closed around 1938 due to the exhaustion of reserves. The Bezerra Mines were at the centre of the Couto Mineiro do Lena (Lena Mining Estate), set up in 1925. In order to transport the coal production, the Lena Mining Railway was built, initially running between Batalha and Martingança stations. The railway reached Minas da Bezerra in the 1920s and by 1930 people and goods were also being transported. Between 1930 and 1933, the Empresa Mineira do Lena (Lena Mining Company) had the Porto de Mós Thermoelectric Power Station built. With tonnes of coal from the mines, the inhabitants of Batalha and Porto de Mós saw their homes lit up with electricity for the first time instead of oil lamps and lanterns. Only traces remain of the railway line, access galleries, old buildings and structures that made that period so dynamic. The coal route has been converted into an eco-trail and integrated into the PR6, a trail of historic beauty that includes tunnels and stone walls cut at that time to make way for the railway line.