The name "Wheal" which prefixes many Cornish mine names comes from the Cornish word "whel", which means "tin mine". Sadly, the once great Cornish tin industry is now defunct - the last one to close being 'South Crofty' near Helston. However, preserved workings can still be seen, such as at the Poldark Mine.  

Years ago, the "tinners" were granted special privileges in Cornwall because of their contribution to the economy. Their history is packed with odd traditions and tales. In particular they were very wary about the spirits who lived in the mines - the knockers, buccas (imps) and spriggans. Stories of disembodied hands carrying candles, spirit voices warning of impending rock falls and ghostly black dogs and white hares prophesying certain disaster abound toughout Cornwall – perhaps not too surprising, as flickering candlelight was the tinners' only illumination until Cornishman Sir Humpy Davy invented his Miner's Lamp!

Men, women and children worked in the mines. Women ('bal-maidens') did many of the above-ground tasks, and small children would fetch and carry and do odd jobs. At 12 years old, they could join their fathers underground. As the mines grew larger and more prosperous in the early 19thC, mining became a family tradition in the main mining areas such as West Penwith, where the granite rock masses yielded the largest amounts of tin and copper. Very little was wasted, and by-products included lead and arsenic. Cornish "hard-rock" men were in great demand wherever strength, stamina and skill were needed.

By our standards, life for the miner and his family was very hard. Cottages were tiny, perhaps with only one room and a sleeping loft in the rafters for the children. Water had to be fetched from the local pump, and the garden provided the bulk of the food in the summer, with potatoes being the staple item. Most miners also kept a few chickens and a cow for eggs and milk. On the coast, there were also fish to catch, and it was not unusual for several men to have shares in a small boat and to lay nets and crab pots. Looking after the garden and animals and going fishing were spare time occupations.

Considering the length of the miner's working day and the arduous nature of the work, we can only wonder at their stamina. There were 3 eight-hour daily shifts ("cores") in the mines from 0600, 1400 and 2200 s. Many men walked up to 5 miles to the mine from their homes and, after climbing down hundreds of yards of vertical ladders, walked a further mile or two to actually began work. After 8 hours of backbreaking work in hot, cramped and frequently wet conditions, they had to do it all again in reverse to get home.

It was pitch black underground except for pools of light town by candles stuck to the front of their canvas hats or placed on ledges on the walls. Men bought their own candles and tools and, when pay day came, were often in debt for them to the mine owner. There were several ways of earning money, but generally, a miner was paid for the quality and quantity of good ore brought to the surface. If he was fortunate, and had a dry, workable pitch with rich lodes, he could earn a living wage; otherwise, he took home very little.

There was always danger; rocks fell from the roofs, tunnels caved in, explosions caused disasters, and rotten ladders and planks tew many a miner to his death in deep holes and shafts. Medical services were primitive and expensive, and a miner too badly injured to work had to rely on charity. Every mining village had its little band of cripples sitting forlornly in the village square as a grim reminder of the cost of tin and copper. Surprisingly, however, they were generally cheerful. At a time when all life was hard, they did not consider themselves to be worse off than most. They sang on the way to work, and in the churches and chapels on Sundays; they had a natural ability to harmonise, and the sound of scores of men singing favourite hymns in harmony is well remembered by the older people of Cornwall.

Levant & Geevor

One of the greatest mines of the St. Just mining area was Levant on the Pendeen coast.
The mine opened in 1820 and closed in 1930. It has 60 miles of tunnels beneath the seabed. When Levant closed, the massive steam engine that was used to raise ore and to pump water from the depths of the mine, survived. The engine has been restored by the preservation group the Trevithick Society and is housed in the National Trust's restored engine house at Levant.

Adjoining Levant is Geevor Mine, a treasure house of industrial archaeology. Geevor was the last working mine in the area, but closed in 1990. Now it is the site of an outstanding mine heritage centre.

In the earliest gravel or stream works, the water was carried out in wooden bowls, or was carried off from the working in a 'level', or trench, leading from the work to the river. However, by the end of the 16thC, a period of  shallow diggings in the stanniferous gravel being worked out, shaft mining into the bedrock made mechanical mining improvements essential in order to go deeper underground. Techniques were still primitive; they used picks, hammers and iron wedges, sometimes heating the rock surface by fire to split it open. (Gunpowder was introduced, with several tragic results, in 1689.) Some mines reached a depth of 300 ft, and German engineers were employed to drain the workings: adits were driven into hillsides, and windlasses and water wheels were used to power pumps. The adit was similar to the level only driven tough the hill-side to meet the shaft at its foot. This last was expensive and temporary, because as soon as the shaft was driven deeper additional apparatus had to be used to raise the drainage to the level of the adit. Various mechanical pumping devices worked by man-power were also tried, but the severity of labour they entailed on the men working them made them unsatisfactory and costly. Water wheels were used in some mines, but as their power was limited a deep mine needed two or tee wheels, one above the other, to clear it effectively.