Giew Mine

As it was nice and sunny, I went on the hunt for a field of Daffodils to photograph on my way home from Penzance but couldn't find one. Strange as if your not looking they are everywhere, so I will have to put that project aside for another day.

I did find this though which was nicely illuminated in the low sun. Its the engine house at Giew Mine in Cripplesease (Between St Ives and Penzance). It was built in 1874 and stands over a 225m deep shaft called Frank's shaft. The mine was worked from the mid-eighteenth century and produced tin up until 1922.

The whole hill around here is covered in shafts which are mostly safely capped now but every now and then a huge hole will open up as the timbers that they capped them with rot away. Occasionally this will happen under a house as a lot of the records were lost in the middle of the 20th century and houses were built where they shouldn't have been. It makes house buying an interesting lottery in some areas ;-)