The Grands Bureaux of the mining company at Liévin are the opposite of a pit: a big, solid brick office building where the engineers, accountants and managers ran the underground world from desks. Built in the style of company headquarters across the basin, with generous windows, a formal entrance and a clock, the building announces that coal was a serious business, with a payroll, a hierarchy and a public face. It sits in the town centre, a few hundred metres from the heart of Liévin, and it forms part of the Mining Basin that UNESCO listed in 2012.
The company ran more than offices. It built houses, schools, churches, clinics, sports halls and shops, and it expected loyalty in return. The system, often called paternalism, shaped life in places like Liévin so thoroughly that a miner's family might live in a company house, send the children to a company school, and see the company's name on the clinic and the sports club as well. The system also bred a fierce sense of class identity, and strikes in the coalfield were among the biggest in French history.
The cités around the office, such as the Cité des Sœurs, and the neighbouring terril 31, a slag heap now covered in vegetation, are within walking distance, and you can combine them in a leisurely stroll. Other sites on the wider mining route, as far off as Wallers-Arenberg, belong to the same story, spread across the plain.
Liévin has everything a rider needs: fuel stations, supermarkets, cafés and a market. The town is lively on football match days, when the red and gold of Lens colours spill over from the neighbouring city. The ride is mostly flat and urban, with brick buildings and roundabouts, though a few quiet lanes lead out into the fields. In misty weather the brick looks almost black, and in sun it glows. A strong coffee and a slab of tarte au sucre in a local bakery are the best way to start the morning.