North Kumamoto · AraoNo.1206★★Open in map →
Manda Pit of Miike Coal Mine
A Meiji colliery on the Kumamoto side of the Miike coalfield, kept as a working yard rather than a cleared site. The headframe, the winding house, the lamp room, the bathhouse and the office all still stand, and most of them are open.
- FromKumamoto Station
- bus from Arao, then a short walkJR, then a bus from Arao
- Get off atArao Station (JR Kagoshima Main Line)
- From there
- Manda Pit of Miike Coal Mine
The sweet spot
Manda is on the World Heritage list and signed from the station road, so it is not an undiscovered site. What is unusual is the access. Most preserved pit heads in Japan are read from outside a fence, but here the winding house, the lamp room and the office are open, with the machinery and the fittings still in them.
Where it is
18 more notes in Kumamoto · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- The lamp room and bathhousewhere the safety lamps were charged and men washed the soot off after a shift
- The winding engine housea brick hall of two floors holding the winch and the cage-hoisting gear
- The second shaft headframea steel frame 18.8 metres high over the shaft mouth, with counterbalanced cages
- The officea room left as it was, down to the lockers, the teacups and the calendar
- The mountain-god shrinea small stone shrine in the yard where men prayed before going underground
How to actually get there
- Kumamoto Station to Arao on the JR Kagoshima Main Line.
- From the station front, take a Sanko bus for Manda-naka or Kurakake and get off at Manda-ko-mae.
- Buy the ticket at Manda-ko Station, the free visitor building by the car park, and walk on to the yard.
- Work through the lamp room and bathhouse, then the winding house, the headframe and the office.
- JR Kagoshima Main Line north from Kumamoto
- From Kumamoto Station take the JR Kagoshima Main Line north to Arao, the last station in the prefecture. Many services out of Kumamoto turn back there, so the run is usually made without a change. Trains work through the day, and fares are payable by IC card or at the machine.
- Return from Arao Station
- Take the bus back to the station front and pick up a southbound train for Kumamoto. The buses thin out well before the trains do, so read the last return on the timetable at the stop before you settle in at the site.
About the place
Arao sits at the top of Kumamoto, hard against the Fukuoka border and on top of the Miike coalfield. Manda was one of the pits Mitsui sank there, and the second shaft that still stands was cut not to raise coal but to move men, water and air. Coal came up at other shafts. This one carried the cages that took miners down, and the pumps that kept the workings dry. What is left is a whole yard rather than a single monument: a steel headframe, a brick winding house, a lamp room and bathhouse, a store and pump room, an office, and a small shrine to the mountain god. The listed ground crosses the prefectural line, so part of it lies in Fukuoka.
How to enjoy it
The gate opens at 9:30 and the last admission is 16:30, so an early afternoon still leaves time to go through the buildings without hurrying. Start at the free visitor building, where a VR walk-through covers the part of the pit no one can reach, and where the free guided rounds set off at fixed times.
Background & history
Coal was first cut at Manda in 1897, and the steel headframe over the second shaft was finished in 1908. Cutting stopped in 1951, when the seams here no longer paid, but the shaft did not finish its work there. It took over the job of pumping water out of the wider Miike workings and stayed at it until the mine closed in 1997. The buildings were made an Important Cultural Property in 1998, and in 2015 Manda was inscribed with the other Meiji industrial sites as World Heritage.
Before you go
- Cash
- The pit yard is ticketed: 410 yen for an adult at the time of checking, less for students, and free for children under school age. The visitor building beside the car park costs nothing to enter. Carry cash for the bus.
- Before you go
- Everything outside the buildings is open to the weather, and much of the yard is loose ground and old rail. The site closes on Mondays, moving to the next weekday when a Monday falls on a public holiday, and it shuts over the New Year.
- Another way
- From the Fukuoka side, Omuta Station is the nearer gateway, with Nishitetsu buses toward Kurakake running out this way. A taxi from either station reaches the gate directly.
- After you get off
- From the Arao Station front, take a Sanko bus signed for Manda-naka or Kurakake and get off at Manda-ko-mae, then walk to the gate. By car, the car park and the visitor building sit just off the road past the Manda Coal Mine Museum, and the pit is a few minutes further on foot.