Portreath Harbour and Charlestown

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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

   Portreath Harbour 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 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is St Just Mining District.

3. 3. 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

   about 56 km into the recorded legs you reach St Just Mining District. Next is Charlestown.

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

5. 5. back through St Just Mining District

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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

   back through St Just Mining District sits at 199 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 252 km into the recorded legs. Next is Portreath Harbour.

7. 7. 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

   Portreath Harbour closes the day.