Geevor Tin Mine

Interactive learning awaits at Geevor Tin Mine with hands on exhibits in the Hard Rock Museum, gold and gem panning for kids, and a trip underground! You can explore a tiny part of the vast underground network with a guide and get a little feel for what the atmosphere was like down there. You can also learn all about Victorian mining, drilling and blasting, and about the rocks and metals littered beneath your feet. When you're standing there, anyway!

As far back as the Bronze Age, Around 4000 years ago in the Bronze Age people began to work the land in search of metals. Cornwall's greatest era of mining was the early 19th century, when it was the world's leading supplier of copper! By around 1860 overseas suppliers had taken over the copper trade and tin instead became Cornwall's most vital metal export. The fluctuations of demand are interestingly depicted through their exhibits and over the years the mining industry brought both prosperity and poverty in notable extremes.

It's a very educational visit to nourish your brains and tickle kids' imaginations, but it's likely to be a fairly short one unless it's complimenting a school project, in which instance they'd have loads to work with. The point being that it's best as a part of a larger day out and they can help you there!

It's a point of interest that parts of the recent TV series Poldark were filmed here, with the Geevor staff lending period tools and providing technical advice. Tell Nan Aidan Turner won't be there!