Engelsberg Ironworks

Engelsberg is the best preserved ironworks of its kind anywhere, which sounds like a small claim until you understand that Sweden's bar iron ran European industry for two centuries and this is where the process survives intact. The blast furnace, the forge, the manor house, the workers' housing, the offices and the charcoal sheds all stand where they were, from a works that ran from 1681 to 1919 and then simply stopped. Nothing was rebuilt for visitors. UNESCO listed it in 1993, the lake beside it is still black with slag, and the island in that lake holds the oldest preserved oil refinery anywhere.