Portreath Harbour and Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts

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 Kennall Vale.

2. 2. 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 comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts.

3. 3. Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts

   Tregonning Hill is a low, rounded granite dome above Germoe, and on its slopes in the middle of the eighteenth century a Plymouth chemist named William Cookworthy found white clay of a quality that Europe had never produced. He recognised it as kaolin, the secret of Chinese porcelain, and the find began an industry that eventually shifted to the larger deposits around St Austell. The ground around Tregonning and Gwinear is a landscape of old tin and copper workings, engine houses, abandoned stacks and small fields enclosed by stone hedges. The whole Cornish mining landscape was listed by UNESCO in 2006 and these districts are part of it.

   Read the complete Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 38 km into the recorded legs you reach Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts. Next is back through Kennall Vale.

4. 4. back through 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

   back through Kennall Vale, late in the day. Next is Portreath Harbour.

5. 5. 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 at Portreath Harbour. That is the ride.