GRANDEUR 
Down in the pit there was little reason to celebrate. But before the Second World War ‘La Grande Salle’ did echo with jollity a couple of times a year when the Saint Barbara celebrations and staff party were held. Was everyone invited to share in the festivity? No, of course not; only the management, the engineers and the office workers. After the war, the room was no longer used for ceremonial purposes. At that time, the busts of Guillaume Lambert and André Dumont, the figureheads of coal mining in the Kempen, were given a place of honour here.