Why this ride
158 km from Redruth to Redruth, about 2 h 51 of riding. On the way it passes Charlestown, Caradon Mining District and back through Charlestown. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Gwennap Mining District and Caradon Mining District
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 158 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 51
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Gwennap Mining District
The hills between Redruth and Truro are some of the most worked ground in Europe. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Gwennap was said to be the richest square mile of mining country in the world, with copper and tin coming out of shafts so close together that the engine houses seem to stand shoulder to shoulder. Today the chimneys and roofless buildings stand in gorse and bracken, and the red-brown streams and spoil heaps tell you what lay underneath. The area is part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, and the village of St Day, with about seven hundred people, sits at its centre, with a fine ruined church in the middle of a green.
Read the complete Gwennap Mining District write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Gwennap Mining District is where the day begins. Next is Charlestown.
2. Charlestown
Charlestown is a harbour carved out of a beach. In the 1790s, a local landowner called Charles Rashleigh built a port here, cutting a dock into the rock to ship copper ore and, above all, china clay from the pits around St Austell, and the village took his name. Little has changed since: the stone harbour walls, the lock gates, the Georgian cottages and the old warehouses survive almost intact, which is why the harbour is part of the UNESCO Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape and why film and TV crews love it. Tall ships often moor in the dock, and you may have seen it as a backdrop in more than one period drama.
Read the complete Charlestown write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Charlestown comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Caradon Mining District.
3. Caradon Mining District
Engine houses stand like chess pieces on the southern flank of Bodmin Moor, tall granite boxes with their chimneys still pointing at the sky, and around them the ground is scarred by spoil heaps, shafts and old tramway beds. This is the Caradon Mining District, around the village of Pensilva and the hill of Caradon, where copper was found in the 1830s and set off a boom that made it, for a few decades, one of the richest copper districts in Britain. It is one of the ten areas of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, listed in 2006.
Read the complete Caradon Mining District write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Caradon Mining District. Next is back through Charlestown.
4. back through Charlestown
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Charlestown write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Charlestown, late in the day. Next is Gwennap Mining District.
5. Gwennap Mining District
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gwennap Mining District write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Gwennap Mining District. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Gwennap Mining District to Charlestown
Gwennap Mining District → Charlestown is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Charlestown to Caradon Mining District
Charlestown → Caradon Mining District is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Caradon Mining District to back through Charlestown
Caradon Mining District → back through Charlestown is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Charlestown to Gwennap Mining District
back through Charlestown → Gwennap Mining District is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.