Cornwall

Tourist Mines.

Many of this sites visitors must want to have an underground experience without having to do hairy abseils down dripping shafts, wading through water, or having to join a mining/caving club. I have therefore decided to include a page on good tourist mines worth the visit. I shall include other areas eventually as other pages get added.

Where else to start but Cornwall.

Cornwall

South Crofty

South Crofty is a must for anyone interested in old mines. The underground tour takes you down the Tuckingmill Decline and up a series of steps into old stopes in the Cooks Kitchen part of the set.

Above is a picture taken from South Crofty's brochure. You can see the flatness of the lode. Some of the views are quite spectacular.

There are two videos available for purchase. One covers the work necessary to institute a suitable tourist route through the old workings. It shows Dominic Hudson and his team putting in timbers and building a false floor. Dominic is an ex Geevor miner from St Just and really knows his stuff. Timbering in hard rock mines will eventually become a lost skill unfortunately.

Left is another picture from their brochures showing the new false floor put in by Dominic and his team.

The other video covers exploration of the deep adit system and some of the shafts it connects. The exploration party first descends Valley Shaft from the Tuckingmill Decline, and then explore the various ramifications, at times waist deep in ocherous water. At least one old familiar face to be seen.

Geevor

Geevor offers an underground trip of some interest and the surface remains including the museum. If you are in the area this is just the job for a rainy day. The surface remains are of particular interest. basically, everything is as it was on the day the mine closed. The winding house has both the original steam winding engine as well the electric, there is the dressing floors, the museum, even the miners wash rooms. Personally, I have to say that I visit the place every time I go down. There is just so much to see. Years ago I visited the place while it was still working and descended in the cage 1350 feet down the Victory Shaft. Everything I saw then is now under water.