Mining Heritage

The mining heritage of this area is internationally important and is designated as part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. Perhaps the most obvious markers of mining heritage in the landscape are the granite engine – houses, built to house the pumping engines and machinery that enabled deep working during the 19th-century copper and tin boom.

However, it is still possible to identify Bronze-Age (c. 2,500 – 700BC) and Romano-British workings (c. 44 – 410AD), and find evidence of earlier medieval and post-medieval tin streaming and later surface & shallow working of metal ores in the local landscape, if you know what to look for.

Features of the Caradon Hill area

19th-century mine sites in the Caradon area followed much the same pattern as in the west of the county, but they have left less of an obvious footprint here, where agricultural industry is far more evident. This is partly due to the Caradon area mines being established later than ancillary developments, such as Holman’s in Camborne, Harvey’s Foundry in Hayle and Bickford-Smith’s Fuseworks in Tuckingmill, so they didn’t need to build these mining-related industries locally as they already existed in the west. Unlike most of the old mine sites further west in Cornwall, Caradon is also predominantly Common Land and is grazed by Registered Graziers (Commoners) so the land has been able to revert back to agricultural use rather than being developed for housing, as is typical of brown-field sites.

One of the key priorities highlighted by the public during the early consultation stages of CHAHP was to conserve the area’s mining heritage and improve access to it, so that was an important element of all of the work CHAHP has supported, alongside the structural consolidation of these impressive mine complexes.

Among the conservation projects were:

West Caradon and Craddock Moor

Works have been undertaken to conserve and improve access to the huge range of structures at these sites including chimneys, pumping engine house remains, boiler houses and shafts.

New Phoenix and West Phoenix Mines

Conservation of New Phoenix engine house, a very prominent landscape feature near Minions, and the associated buildings.

South Caradon Mine

Improved access was created within the site so it’s easier and safer to explore. We worked with relevant organisations to conserve the highest priority structures of this, the best-preserved copper mine head complex in the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site.

Interesting facts

• Ore extraction dates back to pre-historic times, not just to the times of the derelict 19th-century engine houses
• Engine houses are just the surface evidence of mining production processes; the majority of the mine workings are hidden underground
• Most Common Land is de facto designated as Open Access (CRoW Act), so the public are permitted to walk freely across the sites with certain local safety, livestock, wildlife and management restrictions – some permanent, some temporary