Kennall Vale and St Just Mining District

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Kennall Vale

   Kennall Vale is a steep, wooded ravine in the middle of Cornwall's mining country, and for a hundred years its stream was used to make gunpowder. The mills, built in the early nineteenth century, produced the powder that miners used to blast tunnels and shafts in the tin and copper mines, and the valley was chosen because it had water, privacy and trees to absorb explosions. The gunpowder works closed in the early twentieth century, and the buildings fell into ruin. Now the old mill walls stand in a thick green wood of oak, beech and ash, with moss on every stone and a leat, the stone-lined channel that brought the water, still threading through. It is one of the most atmospheric places in west Cornwall, and a nature reserve.

   Read the complete Kennall Vale write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kennall Vale is where the day begins. Next is Trewavas.

2. 2. Trewavas

   Trewavas Head is a short stretch of Cornish cliff, between Porthleven and Marazion, where the old engine houses of Wheal Trewavas cling to the rocks above the sea. The mine, which worked tin and copper in the nineteenth century, was dug from the cliff face and went out under the sea bed, and its engine houses were built in a precarious position on ledges with the Atlantic breaking below. The sight is one of the most dramatic in the Cornish mining landscape, which UNESCO listed in 2006, and the story of the miners who worked there, hanging on the cliffs and tunnelling under the waves, is told in the old photographs.

   Read the complete Trewavas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Trewavas comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Portreath Harbour.

3. 3. Portreath Harbour

   Portreath is a harbour made by hand. Before the Bassets, the great landowning family of this part of Cornwall, built its quay in the late eighteenth century, there was only a cove between steep cliffs. Afterwards, there was a port that shipped copper ore to the smelters of Swansea and brought back coal, with a tramroad running up the valley to the mines. The tramroad, built in 1809, was one of the earliest in Cornwall, and horse-drawn wagons rolled down it for decades. The harbour has two basins, a sea wall, and a granite pier, and a rocky island called Gull Rock lies just off it.

   Read the complete Portreath Harbour write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Portreath Harbour. Next is St Just Mining District.

4. 4. St Just Mining District

   Out at the very end of Cornwall, where the land runs out in granite cliffs above the Atlantic, the coast between St Just and Pendeen is studded with the ruined engine houses of tin and copper mines. Some of them stand right on the cliff edge, their tall chimneys silhouetted against the sea, and the shafts below ran out under the ocean floor, so deep that miners claimed they could hear boulders rolling on the seabed above them during storms. This is the St Just Mining District, one of the most dramatic parts of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage site.

   Read the complete St Just Mining District write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   St Just Mining District, about halfway. Next is back through Portreath Harbour.

5. 5. back through Portreath Harbour

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Portreath Harbour write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Portreath Harbour sits at 123 km, about halfway. Next is back through Trewavas.

6. 6. back through Trewavas

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Trewavas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Trewavas comes up about 158 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kennall Vale.

7. 7. Kennall Vale

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kennall Vale write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kennall Vale closes the day.