Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts and Caradon Mining District · 209 km from Hayle

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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

   Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts is where the day begins. Next is Charlestown.

2. 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 66 km into the recorded legs. Next is Caradon Mining District.

3. 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 105 km into the recorded legs you reach Caradon Mining District. Next is back through Charlestown.

4. 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 Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts.

5. 5. Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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

   Back at Tregonning and Gwinear Mining Districts. That is the ride.