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Geevor Tin Min, Cornwall

Tin has been mined in Cornwall for thousands of years. It was trade in Cornish tin with adventurous Greek and Phoenician traders, from the Mediterranean, that brought Britain into recorded history. This did not happen in a eureka moment when a foreign trader spotted Cornwall ahead and wrote about it. Instead there was a slow emergence of the British Isles from myth, deception and half truth. Herodotus (484 - 425BC) mentions the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, but knew nothing of their location. Five hundred years later Strabo wrote that Phoenicians based at Cadiz in Spain traded with the Cassiterides, but he has no specific details about where they were. He noted that the Phoenicians carefully concealed the whereabouts of the Cassiterides from rivals. The Tin Islands might have been Britain, or a mythic place somewhere out in the Atlantic opposite Spain, created to keep people from finding the real British Isles. As Malcolm Todd says in his history of the south west: "as Roman knowledge of the coast lands of north-western Europe increased the Cassiterides melted away in the Atlantic mists whence they had been conjured" (South West to AD1000 P186). The Cassiterides were probably Cornwall, a source of tin jealously guarded by the traders who went there for it. J. Emsley in Nature's Building Blocks suggests that west country tin deposits were one of the reasons the Romans decided to invade Britain.

 

Tin continued as a vital resource into the medieval period, reflected in the fact that tin miners had their own powerful and independent government institutions known as Stannery Parliaments and Stannery Courts. These organisations should really get more attention. They represented powerful working class organisations centuries before the Tolpuddle Martyrs got together to try and improve their lot in the 1800s. By the nineteenth century Cornish tin mines were producing a large proportion of the world's tin. But this was the final peak of Cornwall's importance as an industrial area. Soon other countries started to undercut Cornish tin prices and decline was then rapid. The last tin mine, South Croifty, closed in 1998. Geever closed in 1990.

Geevor, set in a dramatic location on Conwall's Atlantic coast is now one of the largest mining history sites in Britain, and is part of the World Heritage Site for Cornish mining. There are above ground buildings to explore, with displays of mine equipment, mining photographs and samples of the minerals. There is also a tour underground, down into the Wheal Mexico workings.

 

 

Opening Times: Sunday to Friday 9am - 5pm, with 4pm closing from November to March. Last underground tour one hour before closing. For Christmas and New Year opening times, contact Geever Tin Mine.

Address: Geevor Tin Mine Heritage Centre, Pendeen, Cornwall TR19 7EW

Directions: Geevor Tin Mine is just off the B3306 between Land's End and St Ives. Click here for an interactive map centred on Geevor Tin Mine.

Access: Sturdy footwear is recommended for all visitors. Wheelchair access is possible to the museum, shop, cafe and sone of the surface buildings.

Contact:

telephone: 01736 788662

fax: 01736 786059

e-mail: bookings@geevor.com

web site: http://www.geevor.com/

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