Mining landscape of Cornwall and West Devon

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Mining landscape of Cornwall and West Devon
UNESCO world heritage UNESCO World Heritage Emblem

Crowns peh.jpg
Botallack Mine , St Just, Penzance, Cornwall
National territory: United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
Type: Culture
Criteria : ii, iii, iv
Reference No .: 1215
UNESCO region : Europe and North America
History of enrollment
Enrollment: 2006  (session 30)

The mining landscape of Cornwall and West Devon (English: Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape ) was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006. The mining of copper and tin had a long tradition and the cultural and economic development of the region is considered exemplary for the industrialization of England in the 19th century. In 1998, the South Crofty Mine in Pool was the last tin mine in Europe to be closed. Several mining areas have been designated World Heritage Sites, including the St Just Mining District, Cornwall .

Justification for inclusion in the list of world heritage sites

Engine house of the "East Pool mine" near Pool

The landscape of Cornwall and West Devon was largely transformed in the 18th and early 19th centuries as a result of rapid industrial growth from the pioneering copper and tin mining industry. The extraction of raw materials in civil engineering required complex machines and the corresponding infrastructure. In the vicinity of the mines, winding towers, machine shops and foundries were built. Small and craft businesses settled in as suppliers and the villages developed into new cities. In the early 19th century, the region was able to produce two thirds of the world's copper needs. The structures that have remained largely intact are a testament to the contribution that the Cornwall and West Devon mining landscape made to the industrial revolution in Great Britain. Cornwall and West Devon were the origin of the 19th century from which mining inventions were exported and spread around the world.

history

Cornwall was the main source of tin as early as the Bronze Age and ancient times . The raw material was shipped all over the Mediterranean for bronze production . By the end of the 19th century, Cornwall was supplying more than half of the world's tin and copper was also mined here on a large scale.

1890: Tin mines in Cornwall

The further development of the steam engine at the beginning of the 19th century was essential for mining at ever greater depths . The by Arthur Woolf and Richard Trevithick built high-pressure pump machines with a working beam pumps was a significant improvement in water drainage connected and thus a greater reduction depth become possible.

In the 20th century, the raw material mines were largely exhausted. Mines in Asia and South America could produce cheaper, and many of the Cornish miners emigrated there. Some of the abandoned tin mines were converted to arsenic extraction in the early 20th century due to the increasing industrial demand for arsenic - often a companion mineral to tin. Large areas around the mines were poisoned by the arsenic dust. It was not until the end of the 20th century that the land began to be recultivated and some mines such as B. the Levant Mine or the Geevor Mine have been converted into visitor mines . Civil engineering in Cornwall was finally stopped in 1998 when the closure of the South Crofty Mine, the last tin mine in Europe, ceased operations.

Mining areas

The World Heritage Site comprises a total of ten spatially separated mining areas with the associated communities and infrastructures, which are thematically grouped due to similar industrial developments:

South Caradon Mine, in the municipalities of St Ive and St Cleer is located

Individual evidence

  1. Entry in the UNESCO World Heritage List in English

Web links