Cornwall's mining country does not look like postcards. Around Redruth the land is brown and scrubby, with chimneys and roofless engine houses standing on every hill, and the soil still carries scars where shafts and spoil heaps once covered the countryside. Wheal Peevor is one of those engine houses, near the village of St Day, and a small piece of what UNESCO recognised as the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. At its peak in the nineteenth century, Cornwall produced a huge share of the world's copper and tin, and Cornish miners and engineers carried their skills to Australia, South Africa, Mexico and the United States, which is why you find Cornish pasties in places far from Cornwall.
The site is a short walk from the road, with a free-to-visit engine house, boiler house and chimney in a heathy landscape where gorse and heather grow over old spoil. The place is wonderfully atmospheric in low evening light, when the stone turns gold and the wind sings through the empty windows. Take care around old workings, which are real hazards, and keep to the paths.
The riding in this part of Cornwall is a mixture of narrow lanes, busy A-roads and flat coastal stretches. The A30 passes close by and brings holiday traffic in summer, so I prefer the back roads, which wind through granite villages with Methodist chapels on every corner. Surfaces are generally fine, but the lanes can be narrow, steep and walled, and tractors are common. Weather arrives off the Atlantic with little warning, so expect mist, drizzle and sudden brightness in the same hour.
Redruth, about two kilometres away, is a large town of over forty thousand with all the usual shops, supermarkets, petrol stations and cafés, so food and fuel are no problem. It is a slightly faded place, but with a strong sense of identity. Nearby are the Great Flat Lode trail, the Mineral Tramways, and the north coast at Portreath and Porthtowan, where the cliffs drop to surf beaches and the wind blows hard.
For lunch, a pasty is the obvious choice, a food that was invented as a portable meal for miners, with a crimped crust that served as a handle and was discarded because arsenic from the ore could contaminate it. That, at least, is the story, and it has been told over a great many pasties.