The Elias valley district is a place uniquely combining the well-preserved remains of silver and cobalt ore mining from the 16th to 19th centuries with extensive remains of uranium ore mining from the second half of the 20th century.
The remains of the early modern mining period are wonderfully exposed on a hill to the left of the road between Nové Město and the Abertamy turn, where intersecting systems of dozens of minor heaps and shaft depressions copying the main morning and midnight silver veins are still clearly visible representing a relict early modern mining landscape. From the level of the Eliášský potok stream, several important adits have been driven, the caved-in mouths of which still can be traced. Apart from the Elias inclined shaft (1537) in the valley, numerous other shafts were sunk higher up the hills, of which the most important one was the Rudolf shaft (in 1850 renamed to Werner in honour of Abraham Gottlob Werner, the renowned professor of the Freiberg’s Mining Academy and, after 1945, to Rovnost) which later became the deepest shaft of the Jáchymov Mining Area (660 m).
To supply the mines and dressing installations with water as a source of energy, the Heinzen pond with more than a 6-metre-high dam and a massive vaulted stone culvert was built around 1540 (today Horký rybník pond). To the north-west of the pond, a 16th century water-collecting ditch has been preserved, while on the south-eastern slope, another ditch brought the water from the Heinz pond towards the Elias mine where a torso of a water-wheel chamber built of stone can still be recognized. In the mid-19th century, a new ditch was constructed which since 1851 carried water from the Heinz pond to the winding wheel and mine pumps of the Werner shaft and from here it was directed underground to Jáchymov, where the water was used to propel the water column hoisting machine of the Svornost mine and the nearby stamping batteries. A large part of this ditch including, in places, mica-schist slabs used to cover the trough is still preserved.
The distinct mining landscape on both slopes of the Elias Valley bears also an outstanding witness to the large-scale mining of uranium ore from 1946 until 1964. The slopes of the valley are clad by huge modern-era heaps of the Eduard, Jiřina and Eva mines and, at a higher level, by the heaps of the Rovnost, Shaft No. 14, Zimní Eliáš, Adam and other mines that now determine the shape of the landscape. The vast waste heaps of uranium shafts sharply contrast with numerous small heaps of silver and cobalt mines which operated in this area from the 16th until the 19th century. A remnant of the post-war period is also a monumental torso of the compressor plant of the central dressing plant. Of the shaft installations only the shaft buildings of the Eduard mine have been partially preserved.
