The Birnbaum Adit is one of the oldest and most important mining monuments in the Štiavnica-Hodruša mining district.
Its portal lies at an altitude of 448.3 m above sea level, near the parish church in the historic heart of the village. The simple entrance portal has survived, complete with a niche for a statuette of the mine’s patron saint.
The exact year in which work on the adit began cannot be traced in the archives. The earliest surviving written record of the adit dates from 1547 and concerns the division of kuxes (what we would now call shares). Further records date from 1645, when the adit and its operation were revived after a break lasting several decades.
The small house standing right next to it first served as a store for material carried through the Birnbaum Adit to the Michal Shaft. Between the wars it was the local fire station for Banská Hodruša, and it was later converted into a dwelling. The building opposite housed the management of the Michal Shaft works, and as late as the 1950s a small hand-operated klopačka (knocking board used to call miners to work) still stood next to it.
