Geevor Tin Mine - Mine Museum

Article By: Dan Hill

3 years ago

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Culture-Museum

Having spent my teenage years in the late 80s and 90s living in west Cornwall, I'd heard about the rich mining history of the area, and seen plenty of mine ruins lining the landscape. Mining in the area dates back to at least 2000 years BC, and continued until the closure of the last working tin mine in Europe - South Crofty, near Camborne in 1998. Geevor Tin Mine, located at Pendeen in Cornwall, operated until 1991. Today, Geevor is open as a museum - and an exceedingly good one. I visited it in 2012 and I finally got a sense of what life was like for the miners. This is not a museum with a few old photographs and models to look at - this museum is the actual mine, workings and machinery that existed when the mine ceased production. It actually feels like the miners could have been working just a few hours before you arrived - time seems to have stood still. There's a guided walking tour into the entrance of a mine shaft - which gives an introductory taste of working underground. Then there's the miner's locker room where you can see where they changed for work and showered after. The tool bags and safety equipment that hung around their waists and their safety helmets hang on the walls. The machine room showing the huge engines is fascinating, as are the sorting conveyor belts where the ore was carried after extraction. I can wholeheartedly recommend visiting Geevor Tin Mine - it's highly educational, interesting, interactive, and very real. Children under 4 get free entrance. A family ticket for 2 adults and up to 3 children costs £49.75. Photo Credits: Dan Hill