Poldark Mine at Wendron

Monday 17 August 1992. We have a run out into the darkest depths of Cornwall - literally as we are about to go traipsing down an old mine.

We are at Poldark Mine, suitably named after the TV programme and the books by Winston Graham. It had earlier opened under the name of Wendron Forge and the tin mine originally Wheal Roots Mine that had been unused since the 1700s.

I had fallen down stairs at home a couple of weeks ago tearing a muscle or tendon or something that went TWANG! as my foot landed. Hence I am dependant on a crutch to walk and the family have lovingly (I think...) christened me Hopalong

Behind us is the spendidly named Greensplat beam engine last used in 1959 for pumping water out of a clay pit in the village of Greensplat near St Austell.

You could go down the mine suitably equipped with a hard plastic helmet and there were three levels of agility or ease.

So of course it was decided that we were going to go down it, up and down slippery slopes or tight corkscrews of steps and when it came to the choice of routes of course everyone chose Route C, the hardest route through the mine...

After which I reappeared into open air, dishevilled, out of breath, bandage trailing from around my foot and ankle - never let it be said that I don't put effort into these blog posts you know... I should be well on the way to a nobel prize for documentary literature if I didn't keep skipping through my lifetime in a sort of yo-yo fashion! So we sat at a table for a refreshing drink - where are they by the way? - avoiding the wasps and a blue bum with a well-practiced swaying dance...

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Wendron Forge and Falmouth

Monday 7 August 1989. Again, a word of explanation for any readers who are coming to these articles in order of posting rather than in the eventual sequence that will appear in the relevant index page. I'm currently re-editing this 1989 holiday's entries and this article is a new insertion - it wasn't included in 2009 when I originally created most of the articles. In those days there wasn't a limitless amount of storage space for a Blogger account. Hence I was more selective and the photographs tended to be smaller. But having got that over with... let's go!

Monday dawned overcast and a little wet. We set out in the cars for a day at Wendron Forge, also known as Poldark Mine. Poldark had been a much-loved TV series based on the books by Winston Graham, airing between 1975 and 1977.

Wendron Forge did indeed have a forge and landscaped gardens and cafeterias and some old industrial machinery.

But it also had a genuine tin mine. You could go down this. Adults had to wear a hard hat as the ceilings were quite low at certain points. Small children were exempt from wearing hats due to their size and the fact that in those days parents were not so stupid as to hoist their kids to carry them around the mine underground on their shoulders... I wouldn't put it past them these days.

There were several weird looking steam engines displayed along with the more familiar shape of a saddle tank locomotive - so called because the water tank sits over the boiler like a saddle on a horse.

We left Wendron and headed out in the car for a ride. It was quite cold for spending the entire day walking about. We ended up in Falmouth as it was starting to go dark. A welcoming sight awaited!

Shops were either closed or on the verge of closing, but Chattels had so many shopping bags and other stuff displayed outside it was going to take the staff a while to get them all taken in before locking up for the night.

We ventured onto the pier. There was not much to do on it except get on or watch the ferries arriving and departing and at this hour, they had long since stopped operations for the night.

Falmouth is the nearest large harbour to the western entrance to the English Channel and is the third deepest natural harbour in the world and the deepest in western Europe at 3-4 metres. It has been a naval base for several hundred years and the start or end point for round-the-world record-breaking voyages including Robin Knox-Johnston who made the first solo non-stop circumnavigation in 1969.

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Wendron Forge and Mine, and Porthleven

Tuesday 6 August 1996. All those adventures in Mevagissy and it was still only just after lunch! We drove to Wendron Forge, which has a tin mine open to the public.

The mine is called Poldark Mine after the books and TV series. The mine is probably the most interesting part of the visit. You can go down and explore but are not allowed to start knocking chunks from the walls...

Hard hats were a must as the roof is only 3 feet high in places - usually those places where you find yourself going down very steep steps. We all had cause to be thankful for the hats! There is only one way round so you can go at your own rate and there is a choice of routes for different abilities. We went round the hardest, having to bend lower, climb steeper, get wetter, and bang your head more than the other routes.

We had tea in a village called Porthleven where the cafe owner gave as good banter as she got from us and the only other customer in the place lingered over his meal as he was enjoying all the comments from our table!

Porthleven is the most southerly port in England, Great Britain and the UK, helped by the fact that England is the most southerly of the latter two... As such it was a place of haven in the days of sailing ships and bad storms. It was historically lumped in with Helston, the place with the Furry Dance, but became a town in its own right as it grew.

Although he was born in India, Porthleven was the home town of the World War II Dambusters Squadron Leader, Guy Gibson.

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