La Zarza: the ruins of a Spanish mineral exploitation abandoned in 1995

Mining in Spain is a practice that dates back to ancient times, with mining operations being documented before the arrival of the Romans.

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One of the oldest sites in Spain and even in the world dates back precisely to that time: it is La Zarza, located in the town of La Zarza-Perrunal (Huelva). The Romans searched for silver there. In the middle of the 19th century, a French company resumed the exploitation of that deposit, in search of copper. Shortly after the deposit was bought by a British company, a railway line was built and also a town for the miners who worked in that mine.

At the end of the 1970s, the exploitation, which was already in decline, passed into the hands of the Compañía Española de Minas de Tharsis. The mine was closed in 1991 and the facilities were abandoned in 1995. Since then, the place has suffered progressive deterioration, becoming part of the long list of ruined mining operations in Spain. The Youtube channel of Aventuras Entresierras (I never tire of recommending you to subscribe, because it has very interesting content) has just published the first part of an exploration of those old installations (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic subtitles in English in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see here some screenshots of the video, as a preview: