Ny-London
 
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Location of Ny-London |
Ny-London is an abandoned mining settlement near Ny-Ålesund on Spitsbergen , Svalbard .
The marble deposits on Blomstrandhalvøya , an island in the Kongsfjord that appeared at the time as a peninsula ( Norwegian : halvøya ) , which has now turned out to be an island after the retreat of a glacier , made the construction of a marble pit appear to be a promising project at the beginning of the 20th century.
The English businessman Ernest Mansfield (1862-1924) had with his Northern Exploration Company Ltd. In 1911 the funds for this were collected and all necessary equipment and other facilities such as steam engines, cranes and railway material were brought to Svalbard. Residential houses for up to 70 people were built. The marble that was mined turned out to be unusable; the first marble cargo shipped to Europe is said to have crumbled during unloading. The company quickly failed.
As a result, some houses from Ny-London were moved to Ny-Ålesund , where they are still in use today. Others crumbled along with the machinery, transportation, and loading equipment that were left where they were. Today, Ny-London, with its ruins and rusting machines as a ghost settlement, is a testimony to the gold rush atmosphere on Svalbard in the early 20th century, when coal mining, which continues to this day, began on this group of islands.
Web links
- Kristin Prestvold: London (Peirsonhamna) , Cruise Handbook of Svalbard, Norsk Polarinstitutt (English)
- Kristin Prestvold: The Northern Exploration Company , Cruise Handbook of Svalbard, Norsk Polarinstitutt (English)
- Willy Hald: London ved verdens end on polarlitteratur.com (Danish)
Coordinates: 78 ° 57 ′ 48 ″ N , 12 ° 2 ′ 52 ″ E