Location: |
Trewellard, Pendeen, near St Just, Cornwall, TR19 7SX.
From St. Ives follow B3306 coast road west along the northern coast of Cornwall. In Pendeen turn right to Geevor mine, signposted. (50.147946, -5.682933) |
Open: |
??? to OCT Mon-Thu, Sun. NOV to ??? changing days. Online booking mandatory. [2024] |
Fee: |
Adults GBP 12, Children (5-17) GBP 6, Family (2+3) GBP 30. National Trust Member: Adults free, Children (5-17) free. [2024] |
Classification: |
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Light: |
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Dimension: | |
Guided tours: | |
Photography: | allowed |
Accessibility: | no |
Bibliography: | |
Address: | Levant Mine, Tel: +44-. |
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info. |
2000 years BP | first evidence of mining. |
1748 | levant Mine first marked on a map by Martyn. |
1820 | Levant Mining Company formed with a capital of £400. |
1840 | Michell’s whim engine made by Harvey’s of Hayle installed. |
1857 | man engine installed. |
1891 | deep level mining ended. |
1919 | 31 miners die in the Man Engine disaster. |
1930 | Levant mine closed. |
1967 | beam engine passed into the care of the National Trust. |
1984–92 | whim engine restored by a group of volunteers. |
1986 | dramatic fall in the price of tin, the Tin Crisis, which caused the closure of the mine. |
1990 | Geevor and Levant tin mine finally closed, the pumps were switched off, the mine flooded. |
2006 | inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. |
Like all other tin mines of Cornwall the mining followed mineralized gangues in the granite diapir. The ores contained tin, copper, and arsenic, which is a by-product of the tin ore.
Levant Mine is a former tin mine located on the northern coast of Cornwall, right above the cliff. This mine was worked during the 19th century and closed in the 1930s. Later it was acquired and reopened by the nearby Geevor Mine in the late 1960s and mined until both mines closed during the Tin Crisis. The two mines are separate sites and managed by different organizations, Levant Mine is operated by the National trust and Geevor by a local non-profit organization. Nevertheless they share the same parking lot, the parking lot at Levant is not open any more. Its a 1 km/15 minutes walk from the Geevor car park to Levant Mine.
The site is visited only after appointment, its mandatory to book a tour with their online booking system. The good thing is that this is possible until one hour before the start of the tour, so you may do it from your smartphone on the fly. Unfortunately they do not give open hours, you have to check out the online booking.
The site is actually called Levant Mine and Beam Engine, the reason is that the beam engine is the main sight today. There are no underground tours but a number of interesting mining related surface buildings which can be visited, like the old engine house with the Levant beam engine. The mine was very rich in copper an tin ores and was considered a 'champion mine'. It extended 1.5 km out under the seabed, more than 600 m below sea level. This became possible after the invention of the steam engine, when the famous cornish Beam Engines were built, huge steam engines which drove a wheel, which was contected to a massive beam, which was moved up and down. The mechanical movement was transferred down into the mine with more beams, where it operated the pumps. Good working pumps allowed the miners to go further and deeper under the sea, because they were able to pump out the water. And of course the steam engines pulled out miners and ore.
The National trust says "Levant is the location of the oldest Cornish steam winding engine still working in its original location." Okay, we needed some time to understand it, but it says, that this is not the oldest steam engine, and not even the oldest which is still working. But its still in its original location and still working, standing in the original Engine House where it wound up the ore from underground for 90 years. The engine was built by Harvey’s of Hayle in 1840, and it is the last engine from this company in Cornwall. It was designed by Francis Michell, and thus it was called Michell’s whim engine.
The site is dedicated to the surface infrastructure and the working conditions of those above ground, due to the lack of an underground tour. Many were older women and girls who worked on the copper and tin dressing floors, breaking the ore into fist sized pebbles. They used long-handled hamers for this physically demanding work. Then others carried them to the stamp mills where they were pulverized. Younger girls hand-sorted through waste to find any pieces of ore which had been missed. They were called bal maidens, where bal is the Cornish word for mine, so it simply mean mine maidens. Levant employed women for these jobs until the begin of World War I.
There is not much to see about the actual underground mining, as it is today filled with sea water. But some tools and equipment in the museum give a glimpse of the working conditions. The mine was warm, the temperature underground could reach 28 °C. The ventilation was not very good and so the air was rather bad and full of rock dust which caused silicosis. Another danger was rockfall, collapses due to blasts, and of course the blasts. The miners had tallow candles for light, which were stuck to the miners’ helmet with clay. The shift was worked underground, after his shift the miner used the man engine to return to the surface, which took half an hour. Without such an elevator miners had to climb ladders for an hour to return to the surface. There was a dry room, the changing room for the miners, where they had clean clothes to change. And then they had to walk home, because the mine was far from the next village, then as now.
The mine was not founded, it was created as an amalgamation of the three mines Zawn Brinney, Boscregan and Wheal Unity. The place had very rich ores, and so the mine was operated even at this remote location. But the mining actually started when the Levant Mining Company was formed with a capital of £400 in 1820. There were 80 shares which were owned by a group of 20 people. They earned a lot of money, as the mine produced £4,630 in the first two months. It didn't stay like this, but in general the mine was quite successful. Only 16 years later, in 1836, the mine employed 320 men, 44 women and 186 children.
We explained the whim engine, used tou haul ore, above. But there was another engine which was called the man engine. As mentioned before it was a sort of elevator which transported the miners up and down the workings faster, hence the name. It is also the place where the Levant mining disaster aka Man Engine disaster happened. A link between the engine and the rod snapped, and as a result machinery collapsed down the shaft. It killed 31 miners which were in the shaft below at that moment. The man engine was not repaired and the deep levels were never worked again.
This original Levant mine was closed in 1930 as a result of the global economic crisis. The price of tin dropped dramatically, and the mine lost large amounts of money. But it was reopened in the 1960s, it was operated by the nearby Geevor Mine. But while they worked the mine, they had no use of the steam engine, it was not economic any more, and so they handed it over to the National Trust in 1967. Between 1984 and 1992 they restored the whim engine, the group of volunteers was known as the Greasy Gang. They were supported by a fundraiser in 1990, which generated mone for the work. At the same time the working mine stopped operation, anothe Tin Crisis with low prices made it unprofitable again. The pumps were turn off, and the whole mine flooded.