Wheal Peevor and St Just Mining District starting at Redruth

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Wheal Peevor

   Cornwall's mining country does not look like postcards. Around Redruth the land is brown and scrubby, with chimneys and roofless engine houses standing on every hill, and the soil still carries scars where shafts and spoil heaps once covered the countryside. Wheal Peevor is one of those engine houses, near the village of St Day, and a small piece of what UNESCO recognised as the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. At its peak in the nineteenth century, Cornwall produced a huge share of the world's copper and tin, and Cornish miners and engineers carried their skills to Australia, South Africa, Mexico and the United States, which is why you find Cornish pasties in places far from Cornwall.

   Read the complete Wheal Peevor write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Wheal Peevor 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 28 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 57 km into the recorded legs you reach St Just Mining District. Next is back through Trewavas.

4. 4. 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, late in the day. Next is Wheal Peevor.

5. 5. Wheal Peevor

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Wheal Peevor write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Wheal Peevor. That is the ride.