Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
Much of the landscape of Cornwall and West Devon
was transformed in the 18th and early 19th centuries as a result of the
rapid growth of pioneering copper and tin mining. Its deep underground
mines, engine houses, foundries, new towns, smallholdings, ports and
harbours, and their ancillary industries together reflect prolific
innovation which, in the early 19th century, enabled the region to
produce two-thirds of the world’s supply of copper. The substantial
remains are a testimony to the contribution Cornwall and West Devon made
to the Industrial Revolution in the rest of Britain and to the
fundamental influence the area had on the mining world at large. Cornish
technology embodied in engines, engine houses and mining equipment was
exported around the world. Cornwall and West Devon were the heartland
from which mining technology rapidly spread.