The Mining Landscape

Minerals have been mined in Cornwall for 4000 years, and derelict engine houses, chimneys and other structures litter the landscape. Tin was an especially valuable mineral, being essential for the making of bronze but not found in many places. At one time Cornwall produced 90% of the worlds tin ore. Copper is far more abundant in Cornwall, but not uncommon elsewhere., Arsenic was a valuable by-product of mining these minerals. And other minerals and valuable rock types were also mined and quarried.

I first of all visited Bottelack, where the Crowns engine houses cling to the foot of the cliffs and other derelict structures cover the landscape (extra). Then I moved onto the Geevor tin mine, where I had lunch, before walking down to the Levant Mine (main image) for a two hour guided tour. From here miles of tunnels extend out under the sea from the shore. The steam operated beam engine was not working today, but still fascinating.

Our guide had worked for a number of years at the South Comfy mine (the last to operate) as a young man, so knew his stuff. Central to Cornish culture are (or were) mining, fishing and Methodism, which all link - so it was interesting to hear that mines measure depths in fathoms, the man in charge was the mine captain, and that temperance meant no drinking. It was a very hard life for the men, women (the “bal maidans”) and children who dug out and broke up the ore from the tin lodes (31 men lost their lives in the 1919 disaster when the “man engine” failed), but the loss of such a core industry from Cornwall is clearly something many local people regret.