Continuing the righting of the wrongs of never visiting any Tin Mine related places on my regular trips to Cornwall, I stopped off at this place, which I had heard a lot about, but had never quite got that far through Cornwall to get to see it and better late than never – this place was absolutely Fantastic.
What was even better on the day I visited, there was next to no-one there and I got to experience the atmosphere in a unique way and if i’m honest, I think I would not have got as much out of my visit if it was busier as it’s nice to stop and take things in as you are wandering around, especially in the locker rooms area (known as ‘The Dry’) which was so full of items from the not only the mine’s past, but also of the miners who used to work the mine, even a recent funeral programme of a miner who had recently passed away.
A bit of history about the mine, taken from the main Geevor site:
The exact date when mining began in the area eventually operated by Geevor is unknown – but in the old workings in the Wheal Carne section there is a date of 1791 cut into the wall of the adit (drainage) level.
In 1906 the mine was registered under the name of North Levant and Geevor Limited, formed by the West Australian Gold Fields Ltd.
In 1911 the Company became Geevor Tin Mines Limited with a capital of £150,000 to acquire and work 3 mines, North Levant, Geevor and and Wheal Carne. The mine was served mainly by the Wethered Shaft (named after the then chairman of the company)
In October 1985 the sudden fall in the world price of tin resulted in ‘the tin crisis’. The price for metallic tin plummeted overnight from £10,000 per tonne to £3,400. Without financial assistance no Cornish tin producer could survive the crisis.
In April 1986 – in a blaze of publicity, protest and emotion – Geevor Tin Mine closed.
After spending quite a long time wandering around the top level buildings, I headed further down the site and into the Mill buildings, which today house the mining equipment which was once used to bring up the rock which contained the precious metal tin, this building in itself is huge in size and if I am honest, I probably did not spend enough time looking at everything on offer there, but I was distracted by the sound of some sort of instrument being played somewhere within the building and it had me very intrigued, was someone in there, or was it the long lost spirit of a long dead miner reliving his past life….
As it turned out, it was one of the volunteers on the site, who spent the time whilst waiting for the next group of people to wander through playing his squeezebox, a hobby he had recently taken up – what a great use of one’s time I thought!
After heading through the Mill buildings, I headed off to the final port of call on my visit, a wander through the Wheal Mexico Underground Mine, which is a 200+ year old mine which was once part of the main mining operation on the site.
It was very stoopy in there and hard going on the back (and if I am honest, the only place on the entire site that I felt I needed to wear the hard hat), plus it was rather cool in the mine and a great escape from the heat of the day and all round a fascinating experience.
After aexiting the mine and navigating back up the rather steep hill that the mine sits on, it was time for a Corinsh Cream tea in the café before heading back after a very successful day.
I ended up getting one of the “pay once come back as much as you like in a year” type tickets so I am hoping that I will be able to get back again this year before the ticket runs out, although if it does, I would still be more than happy to pay full price for another visite.
