CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
332 km from Helston to Helston, about 5 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: St Just Mining District, Charlestown, Caradon Mining District and back through Charlestown. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The first thing to know about Wendron is that the ground beneath it was once worked as hard as any in Europe. West Cornwall's tin and copper made the county rich, and the district around Wendron, a few kilometres north of Helston, was one of the places where it happened. The old mines, the stream works in the valleys and the engine houses on the hillsides are part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, listed in 2006. Many of the ruins are hidden in woods or fields, so you will have to look for them.
Read the complete Wendron Mining District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wendron Mining District is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St Just Mining District comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 127 km into the recorded legs you reach Charlestown. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Caradon Mining District, about halfway. Next is back through Charlestown.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Charlestown write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Charlestown sits at 237 km, about halfway. Next is back through St Just Mining District.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete St Just Mining District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through St Just Mining District comes up about 289 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wendron Mining District.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wendron Mining District write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wendron Mining District closes the day.
Wendron Mining District → St Just Mining District is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
St Just Mining District → Charlestown is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Charlestown → Caradon Mining District is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → back through St Just Mining District is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through St Just Mining District → Wendron Mining District is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.