Geevor Tin Mine
Encyclopedia
Geevor Tin Mine is a tin
mine
in the far west of Cornwall
, England
, United Kingdom
, between the villages of Pendeen
and Trewellard
. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin
. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history
of a working tin mine. The museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage
.
At the turn of the 20th century a group of St. Just
miners who had emigrated to South Africa were forced to return by the outbreak of the Second Boer War
. They leased the area and conducted more thorough prospecting, being encouraged enough to set up a company called Levant North (Wheal Geevor) in 1901. This was acquired by the West Australian Gold Field Company Ltd. in 1904 which brought together various mines under the name of Geevor Tin Mines Ltd. in 1911, not long after the price of tin had rapidly risen to £181 a ton in 1906 from a low of £64 in 1896.
The Wethered shaft (named after Oliver Wethered, one of the founders of the mine) was begun in 1909 and initial development occurred around it. By 1919, the works were moving west toward the coastline and the Victory shaft (named to celebrate the end of the First World War) was sunk about 540 metres to the north-west. The mine suspended operations in 1921 and again for 12 months during the tin crisis in 1930 that permanently closed many other Cornish mines. In 1944 working through Wethered shaft was discontinued, but the Victory shaft continued in use.
From the end of World War II until the early 1960s both Geevor and South Crofty
found it hard to raise capital and to recruit skilled miners. Both mines took on Polish and Italian miners at this time. New investment, forward-looking management and rising tin prices in the 1960s improved matters and at this time around 270 staff were employed by the mine. During the 1960s there was much underground exploration; this included extending into the undersea workings of the Levant mine that had closed in 1930, work that was complicated by a hole in the seabed that first had to be plugged before the workings could be drained.
By the 1970s Geevor's sett
covered an area of about three square miles and included Boscaswell Downs mine, Pendeen Consols and Levant mine. In 1985 the International Tin Council
failed and there was a dramatic fall in the price of the metal. The mine struggled on for a few years, but closed in 1990, and the pumps were switched off in May 1991 allowing the workings to flood. The mine is not geologically exhausted of tin, but it is exhausted of tin that is recoverable economically.
During the 20th century Geevor drove over 85 miles (136.8 km) of tunnels from which it produced around 50,000 tons of black tin
and made a profit of over £7 million. On average over a million gallons of water, a quarter of which was sea-water, was pumped from the mine daily.
granite
of Carboniferous
age, intruded into surrounding Devonian
age "killas
" - a series of metamorphosed
sedimentary and volcanic rocks, visible to the north west of the mine around the cliffs. As the influence of the granitic emplacement increases toward the contact zone, the killas becomes spotted with cordierite
, then mica-rich phyllites and finally at the contact, banded hornfels
and tourmaline
schist
.
The tin appears as cassiterite
(with around 65-70% tin), within veins associated with quartz, tourmaline, metal sulphides and fluorite. The veins are predominantly in a north west - south east orientation and the cassiterite itself forms around 1% of the vein material.
Through the commitment of the local community and local bodies, notably Cornwall County Council
and Pendeen Community Heritage, the site has remained accessible to the public. Geevor Tin Mine is now a museum and heritage centre, covering an area of 67 acres (271,139.6 m²) which makes it the largest preserved tin mining site in Great Britain. It is an important part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
and was recognised by UNESCO in 2006. It has been the subject of a £3.8 million improvement programme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund
, Objective One, Cornwall County Council and Penwith District Council.
Geevor's new Hard Rock museum is part of the final stage of this improvement programme. The museum tells the story of tin mining in Cornwall and Geevor in particular, showing what happened on the surface and underground and what life was like for those who worked there, including oral history recordings. Visitors can also walk through the mine buildings to see the original machinery and there is a guided underground tour into Wheal Mexico, an 18th century mine. The site has a souvenir shop and a cafe that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean
. There are interactive activities e.g. panning for gold and gemstones.
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
mine
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
in the far west of Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, between the villages of Pendeen
Pendeen
Pendeen is a village on the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is north-northeast of St Just and west of Penzance.The village has a community centre, a shop, a post office, a primary school, and a few small businesses. Community activities include an art club, silver marching band...
and Trewellard
Trewellard
Trewellard is a small village on the north coast road between St Just and St Ives in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated 7 miles from Land's End and 7 miles from Penzance...
. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin
Black tin
Black tin is the raw ore of tin, usually cassiterite, as sold by a tin mine to a smelting company. After mining, the ore has to be concentrated by a number of processes to reduce the amount of gangue it contains before it can be sold...
. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history
Living history
Living history is an activity that incorporates historical tools, activities and dress into an interactive presentation that seeks to give observers and participants a sense of stepping back in time. Although it does not necessarily seek to reenact a specific event in history, living history is...
of a working tin mine. The museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage
European Route of Industrial Heritage
The European Route of Industrial Heritage is a network of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. The aim of the project is to create interest for the common European Heritage of the Industrialisation and its remains...
.
History
Tin and copper have been mined from the general area of Geevor since the late 18th century. It was originally a small enterprise known as Wheal an Giver, "a piece of ground occupied by goats". The area was worked under the name of East Levant Mine until 1840 and then as North Levant from 1851 to 1891 when it closed. During the 1880s as many as 176 workers were employed at the mine, but in the ten years after North Levant's closure the site saw only intermittent activity by a few miners.At the turn of the 20th century a group of St. Just
St Just in Penwith
St Just is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish encompasses the town of St Just and the nearby settlements of Trewellard, Pendeen and Kelynack: it is bounded by the parishes of Morvah to the north-east, Sancreed and Madron to the east, St Buryan and Sennen to...
miners who had emigrated to South Africa were forced to return by the outbreak of the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
. They leased the area and conducted more thorough prospecting, being encouraged enough to set up a company called Levant North (Wheal Geevor) in 1901. This was acquired by the West Australian Gold Field Company Ltd. in 1904 which brought together various mines under the name of Geevor Tin Mines Ltd. in 1911, not long after the price of tin had rapidly risen to £181 a ton in 1906 from a low of £64 in 1896.
The Wethered shaft (named after Oliver Wethered, one of the founders of the mine) was begun in 1909 and initial development occurred around it. By 1919, the works were moving west toward the coastline and the Victory shaft (named to celebrate the end of the First World War) was sunk about 540 metres to the north-west. The mine suspended operations in 1921 and again for 12 months during the tin crisis in 1930 that permanently closed many other Cornish mines. In 1944 working through Wethered shaft was discontinued, but the Victory shaft continued in use.
From the end of World War II until the early 1960s both Geevor and South Crofty
South Crofty
South Crofty is a metalliferous Tin and Copper mine located in the village of Pool, Cornwall, England UK. An ancient mine, it has seen production for over 400 years, and extends almost two and a half miles across and down and has mined over 40 lodes. Evidence of mining activity in South Crofty has...
found it hard to raise capital and to recruit skilled miners. Both mines took on Polish and Italian miners at this time. New investment, forward-looking management and rising tin prices in the 1960s improved matters and at this time around 270 staff were employed by the mine. During the 1960s there was much underground exploration; this included extending into the undersea workings of the Levant mine that had closed in 1930, work that was complicated by a hole in the seabed that first had to be plugged before the workings could be drained.
By the 1970s Geevor's sett
Mining sett
Mining setts were a legal arrangement used historically in the counties of Devon and Cornwall in South West England to manage the exploitation of land for the extraction of tin....
covered an area of about three square miles and included Boscaswell Downs mine, Pendeen Consols and Levant mine. In 1985 the International Tin Council
International Tin Council
The International Tin Council was an organisation which acted on behalf of the principal tin producers in Cornwall and Malaysia to buy up surplus tin stocks to maintain the price at a steady level....
failed and there was a dramatic fall in the price of the metal. The mine struggled on for a few years, but closed in 1990, and the pumps were switched off in May 1991 allowing the workings to flood. The mine is not geologically exhausted of tin, but it is exhausted of tin that is recoverable economically.
During the 20th century Geevor drove over 85 miles (136.8 km) of tunnels from which it produced around 50,000 tons of black tin
Black tin
Black tin is the raw ore of tin, usually cassiterite, as sold by a tin mine to a smelting company. After mining, the ore has to be concentrated by a number of processes to reduce the amount of gangue it contains before it can be sold...
and made a profit of over £7 million. On average over a million gallons of water, a quarter of which was sea-water, was pumped from the mine daily.
Geology
The mine's lodes were located in an outer zone of coarse-grained biotiteBiotite
Biotite is a common phyllosilicate mineral within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . More generally, it refers to the dark mica series, primarily a solid-solution series between the iron-endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more aluminous endmembers...
granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
of Carboniferous
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
age, intruded into surrounding Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...
age "killas
Killas
Killas is a Cornish mining term for metamorphic rock strata of sedimentary origin which were altered by heat from the intruded granites in Devon and Cornwall, England. The term is used in both Devon and Cornwall.-Origin of killas:...
" - a series of metamorphosed
Metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rock is the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form". The protolith is subjected to heat and pressure causing profound physical and/or chemical change...
sedimentary and volcanic rocks, visible to the north west of the mine around the cliffs. As the influence of the granitic emplacement increases toward the contact zone, the killas becomes spotted with cordierite
Cordierite
Cordierite or iolite is a magnesium iron aluminium cyclosilicate. Iron is almost always present and a solid solution exists between Mg-rich cordierite and Fe-rich sekaninaite with a series formula: 2 to 2...
, then mica-rich phyllites and finally at the contact, banded hornfels
Hornfels
Hornfels is the group designation for a series of contact metamorphic rocks that have been baked and indurated by the heat of intrusive igneous masses and have been rendered...
and tourmaline
Tourmaline
Tourmaline is a crystal boron silicate mineral compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is classified as a semi-precious stone and the gem comes in a wide variety of colors...
schist
Schist
The schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...
.
The tin appears as cassiterite
Cassiterite
Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem...
(with around 65-70% tin), within veins associated with quartz, tourmaline, metal sulphides and fluorite. The veins are predominantly in a north west - south east orientation and the cassiterite itself forms around 1% of the vein material.
Tourist attraction
Cornwall County Council
Cornwall Council is the unitary authority for Cornwall, in England, United Kingdom. The council, and its predecessor Cornwall County Council, has a tradition of large groups of independents, having been controlled by independents in the 1970s and 1980s...
and Pendeen Community Heritage, the site has remained accessible to the public. Geevor Tin Mine is now a museum and heritage centre, covering an area of 67 acres (271,139.6 m²) which makes it the largest preserved tin mining site in Great Britain. It is an important part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes across Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of the United Kingdom...
and was recognised by UNESCO in 2006. It has been the subject of a £3.8 million improvement programme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
, Objective One, Cornwall County Council and Penwith District Council.
Geevor's new Hard Rock museum is part of the final stage of this improvement programme. The museum tells the story of tin mining in Cornwall and Geevor in particular, showing what happened on the surface and underground and what life was like for those who worked there, including oral history recordings. Visitors can also walk through the mine buildings to see the original machinery and there is a guided underground tour into Wheal Mexico, an 18th century mine. The site has a souvenir shop and a cafe that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. There are interactive activities e.g. panning for gold and gemstones.
See also
- List of topics related to Cornwall
- Mining in Cornwall and Devon
- Dartmoor tin-miningDartmoor tin-miningThe Dartmoor tin mining industry is thought to have originated in pre-Roman times, and continued right through to the 20th century. From the 12th century onwards tin mining was regulated by a Stannary Parliament which had its own laws....
- South CroftySouth CroftySouth Crofty is a metalliferous Tin and Copper mine located in the village of Pool, Cornwall, England UK. An ancient mine, it has seen production for over 400 years, and extends almost two and a half miles across and down and has mined over 40 lodes. Evidence of mining activity in South Crofty has...
Tin Mine
Sources
- Geevor: Proceedings of the 9th Commonwealth Mining and Metallurgical Congress, May 1969.