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Tin legacy
The tin mining industry in Cornwall began over 2,500 years ago and references to merchants trading with Cornish tinners are found amongst the most ancient writings of Greek and Roman geographers. The rare and valuable tin produced in Cornwall was taken all over the known world.
These pioneering Cornishmen streamed the valleys and mined the veins visible in cliffs and hillsides. Throughout medieval times the "tinners" were regarded as special people. Charters granted by King John and Edward III gave them unique rights and privileges.
Cornishmen are justly proud of their mining heritage which, at its peak between 1750 and 1850, firmly established Cornwall as the centre of the hard rock mining world. Apart from supplying most of the world's tin and copper, Cornwall's vast experience in hard rock mining developed unique skills among its miners which were later put to work in mines throughout the world. Land owners, mineral lords and speculators made vast fortunes.
With the arrival of steam power in the 18th Century, Cornish mining engineers pioneered and developed the massive beam engines which have helped the mines to operate at ever-greater depths. Working in majestic granite engine houses, the remains of which dominate much of the Cornish countryside today, they could either pump water and raise ore and men from mines or provide power and water for the crushing stamps and ore dressing floors at surface on which thousands of Cornish men, women and children worked.
The decline of the industry in the mid 19th Century resulted in thousands of Cornish miners taking their families and their skills overseas to the developing mining areas of Australia, the Americas and South Africa. It is still said that wherever there is a mine you will probably find a Cornishman at the bottom of it.
Tin legacy
The tin mining industry in Cornwall began over 2,500 years ago and references to merchants trading with Cornish tinners are found amongst the most ancient writings of Greek and Roman geographers. The rare and valuable tin produced in Cornwall was taken all over the known world.
These pioneering Cornishmen streamed the valleys and mined the veins visible in cliffs and hillsides. Throughout medieval times the "tinners" were regarded as special people. Charters granted by King John and Edward III gave them unique rights and privileges.
Cornishmen are justly proud of their mining heritage which, at its peak between 1750 and 1850, firmly established Cornwall as the centre of the hard rock mining world. Apart from supplying most of the world's tin and copper, Cornwall's vast experience in hard rock mining developed unique skills among its miners which were later put to work in mines throughout the world. Land owners, mineral lords and speculators made vast fortunes.
With the arrival of steam power in the 18th Century, Cornish mining engineers pioneered and developed the massive beam engines which have helped the mines to operate at ever-greater depths. Working in majestic granite engine houses, the remains of which dominate much of the Cornish countryside today, they could either pump water and raise ore and men from mines or provide power and water for the crushing stamps and ore dressing floors at surface on which thousands of Cornish men, women and children worked.
The decline of the industry in the mid 19th Century resulted in thousands of Cornish miners taking their families and their skills overseas to the developing mining areas of Australia, the Americas and South Africa. It is still said that wherever there is a mine you will probably find a Cornishman at the bottom of it.