PRESS RELEASE
from
Geevor Tin Mine Museum & Heritage Centre

 

19th May 2008

BRONZE AGE SMELTING AT GEEVOR

Geevor Tin Mine plays host to Bronze Age metalworker and Celtic craftsman Neil Burridge on May 28th for the first in a series of practical workshops illustrating Bronze Age technology and recreating the first metal used by man 3,000 years ago.

Neil’s demonstrations show him working bronze as it was done thousands of years ago - smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper ores, and then smelting those ores to cast bronze, pouring the bright orange molten metal into moulds and showing how a sword would have been cast during the Bronze Age - giving an insight into the practices of the ancient metalworkers who led us out of the Stone Age.

As well as an accomplished metalworker and craftsman Neil is an experienced film and TV performer having appeared in numerous documentaries screened by BBC TV, Westcountry TV and the Discovery Channel.

Neil’s demonstrations are at 11.30 and 2.30. Normal admission applies.

 

25th April 2008

EX MINER RECALLS A LIFE UNDERGROUND

The Spring season of events at Geevor Tin Mine continues with the first in a series of talks by ex Geevor miner, Ian Davey. Ian worked underground at Geevor for fourteen years, starting in 1970 and continuing, on and off like many miners, until the mine finally stopped producing tin and the last workers were made redundant in February 1990.

Above: Ian Davey (right) with his partner Dennis Way in their stope on 11 Level

Ian’s work at Geevor included activities that are a lexicon of a tin miner’s life – he started as a grizzly man, was then promoted to hand tramming, worked the vole creating dump holes for blasting, learnt stoping 1,100 ft underground in tunnels only 3ft or 4ft wide and finished as a trammer digger, 1,700ft deep, out under the Atlantic Ocean.

Work underground was, without exception, hard and dangerous. The grizzly men broke rocks using a 14lb sledgehammer, hand trammers filled a 1 ton wagon with rock and then pushed the loaded wagon along a rail track for emptying (earning a 3½p per ton bonus), miners used the vole, a drilling rig on rails, to drill 4" diameter holes that were filled with high explosive for blasting up to 1,500 ft down and stopers drilled vertically above their heads, in cramped wet conditions and deafening noise, using heavy, compressed air powered drills weighing 96lbs.

A Miner’s Tale, a series of talks by Ian Davey, begins on May 5th. For further information please contact Fiona Young of Pendeen Community Heritage 01736 788662

17th March 2008

SPRING EVENTS AT GEEVOR

A Spring and Summer season of activities at Geevor Tin Mine will kick off on March 26th with a “Scrapheap Challenge.” Staff at Geevor are challenging visitors to build a working water wheel from recycled materials.

Visitors will design a water wheel to pull a tram cart and build it, using glue guns and staplers, from recycled milk cartons, plastic containers, plastic piping, board and wooden pallets and crates collected from the Geevor site and recyclable material provided by local companies supporting the event. The water wheel that pulls the tram cart the greatest distance within one minute will be declared the winner. The annual event is always a great success, proving that science and engineering can be fun, interesting and enjoyable and last year was one by a schoolboy duo from Humphry Davy School.

The programme of events continues with a children’s workshop on April 1st, titled “Headgear,” where the challenge is to create an Easter Bonnet based on the mine’s headgear. In the morning visitors can explore the site to generate creative ideas and in the afternoon put the ideas into practice and make sculpturedn headgear to take home. The workshop is led by creative artist Diane Spiers and sessions can be booked by telephoning 01736 788662. There is a charge of £2.50 per session, £5.00 for the day per child and booking essential. (Children staying for both sessions will require a packed lunch).

7TH MARCH 2008

£3.8 MILLION PROJECT SECURES GEEVOR JOBS

A £3.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund and Objective One project opens in summer 2008 that will transform Cornwall’s leading mining heritage site, secure local jobs and bring thousands of extra visitors to the far west of Cornwall. Geevor Tin Mine’s “Hard Rock” Museum – the UK’s first and finest hard rock mining museum and seventeen newly conserved buildings will open to visitors.

Bill Lakin, Chair of Trustees of Pendeen Community Heritage, the charity that manages Geevor for Cornwall County Council, said “Geevor is the biggest and the best mining history site in the country and all the team here, led by Jo Warburton, the Curator, are working very hard to make sure that it has one of the top museums in the UK at its heart”.

The newly converted 420m² (4520ft²) Museum describes the story of mining in Cornwall and the history of Geevor Tin Mine, using dramatic modern display techniques showcasing important collections of Bronze Age Cornish mining artifacts, archive photographs of Geevor and a stunning display of Geevor’s mineral collection.

“We hope to have an extended underground tour for visitors” Bill Lakin continued. “We know that going underground into Wheal Mexico is one of the highlights of a day out at Geevor and we want to show people more. We have been raising funds for the “Wheal Mexico Project” through an appeal to members of Pendeen Community Heritage across the world: the appeal has been successful but is still open. On the staff at Geevor are a number of former miners and they are using their skills to open up more of the mine and make it accessible to visitors”.

“Extending access underground at Wheal Mexico is exciting” says mining engineer Mike Simpson, Geevor’s manager. “We are not completely sure about the extent of the mine workings so there is an element of discovery in the project. We have to excavate and remove a lot of loose material and then see what’s behind it. And it’s really good to see the skills of the miners being used again”.

“It is expected that the new developments will increase visitor numbers to 50,000 p.a. by September 2008 and 65,000 p.a. by 2010” said Bill Lakin. “Outputs calculated on Objective 1 formulas show 48 jobs created directly and indirectly locally, with £1.6m pa additional gross sales within the local (Penwith) economy”.
Ends.

Conversion work in progress in “Hard Rock” the new museum.

Building work – the mill buildings covered in scaffolding and the headgear behind.

Former Geevor miners, now tourist guides but ready to start work underground again. L to R: Ernie Ellis, Dennis Way, Eddie Strick, Ian Davey.

Dennis Way “timbering”. Dennis replaces 100 year old timber “spreaders” that fit across the tunnel, supporting the roof. Boards called “coverings” are laid between the “spreaders” lengthways to form a ceiling so that loose material does not fall on those below.

Read more and help us on the Wheal Mexico Project here

Written and distributed by Christopher Walton
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