Brief History of Geevor
Geevor
Tin Mine is a Museum and Heritage Centre situated on the outskirts
of Pendeen, in the parish of Pendeen with Morvah, in the far
west of Cornwall. The site can be accessed from the village of
Pendeen, on the coast road from Land's End to St. Ives, and lies
on the route of the South West Coast Path. The Penwith Heritage
Coast - a National Heritage Coast - stretches some 33 miles around
the Land's End peninsula from just south of Penzance to St. Ives.
 |
Visit
to Geevor by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh
in 1957 |
|
Mining
on the Geevor site had survived the discovery of tin in Australia
in 1873 and the discovery of tin in South America and Malaysia.
But the international tin price crash of 1985 turned Geevor
from a working mine with ambitious plans for the future into
an economic liability for which no one could see a viable
future. |
After
six years of bitter
and hard-fought struggle, the pumps were turned off in 1991
and Geevor became part of the history of Cornish mining, ending
nearly
300 years of tin mining on the site and resulting in the loss
of a major source of employment and community cohesion.
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 and is the
largest preserved tin mining site in Europe.
