Váňův kámen, Miners' memorial in Kladno, Czech Republic

Váňův kámen is a memorial in Kladno consisting of a bronze sculpture of an old miner by Ladislav Novák from 1954, set on a sandstone pedestal with a buližník stone from 1854. It stands in a small park by the gymnasium on náměstí Edvarda Beneše and marks the spot where Jan Váňa first searched for coal in 1846.

Jan Váňa found coal in late October or early November 1846 on land leased by Jan Jirátko, a gardener and bricklayer from Buštěhrad, about 500 metres west of the spot where he had first dug without success. On 24 April 1854, the anniversary of Franz Joseph I's marriage to Elisabeth of Bavaria, Váňa placed a large boulder from in front of Dvořák's inn at Kročehlavy over the filled Kateřina-Josefa shaft. The stone was later moved several times because of the expanding ironworks, ending in the park by the Kladno gymnasium.

The stone is named after Jan Váňa, the prospector credited with the first coal find on Kladno territory in 1846. The bronze miner beside it, cast by Ladislav Novák in 1954, bears the sculptor's father's features. The block itself was unveiled on 24 April 1854, the wedding day of Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria.

The memorial stands in a small park by the Kladno gymnasium on náměstí Edvarda Beneše, in the open and freely visible from the square. The sandstone base carries a hollowed niche that once held a metal box, and the boulder above it was set in place without any carving. Look for the bronze miner figure added in 1954.

The boulder is a buližník, a hard silicified rock, hauled from in front of Dvořák's inn below Kročehlavy and set up uncut, "as God created it", without any chiselling. Jan Váňa had a sandstone block prepared with a hollow for a sheet-metal box before the stone was rolled into place over the filled-in Kateřina-Josefa shaft.