We walked north and west of St. Just this time, up through Botallack to the coast path and then south again to the Kenidjack Valley. These clifftops hold tight to the ruins of the 19th century copper and tin mining industry, with chimneys and towers rising into the sky and mine shafts striking deep into the earth and under the sea. This is the St. Just Mining District, part of the UNESCO Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. The roughly seven mile section between St. Just and Gurnard’s Head is called the Tin Coast.
It’s strangely haunting to walk these paths on such a beautiful day and admire the iconic Crown Mines clinging to the edge, explore (now decontaminated) arsenic works, and stand at West Wheal Owles where twenty miners lost their lives on 10th January 1893. The Tin Coast is quiet these days, home to walkers and their dogs, ravens and choughs, grass and stone. We walked in our comfortable modern clothes and boots and tried to imagine the men, women and children who spent long cold days working here, trudging home in the dusk to a small cottage and a hearth fire.
Flat Two 