Geevor Tin Mine, St Ive and Lanhydrock: Cornwall, UK

It is indeed a very very surprising trip to this mine. an old traditional tin mining site under the UNESCO. Who would have known about the mining experience before steam and water guns would be like in the current decade? Geevor tin mine was a mine operated mostly by labour work. the underground site was hand carved by men and the ore digged out was carried in barrels by boys aged 7-9. Then the ores would go through a belt machine and crushed and went being filtered by womens to handpick the ore out of the stuffs collected from the underground site. This is because it is common to have anything collected including gloves and fingers. After this process, the ores will be crushed into 5mm small and went through a shaking table to separate out the tin and other minerals from sand and clay which has different masses. Then the minerals will go through a froth filtration. This is of which that those with  density more than 2.66 will be disposed and those that have density less than 2.66 will be kept and go through an electromagnetic machine to separate out the tin. Concentrate tin is then packed and being shipped off for trading. Tin is widely use mainly to make bronze( an alloy), paint and plastic.

Walking under the underground site, I get to see where workers in the past had to break down the ore using hard labour work and goose feather to make fuse to make small bombs. The tour guide worked in the mine before and showed us around. There are also machines to lower workers down the shaft to the underground site on display at the museum. The tin mine was shut down due to economic reasons, at the time, tin cost around 13 pounds but nowadays it cost 26 pounds. It is also said that investments in tin mining will not give a return for the first 10 years.

St Ive beach.

St Ives Beach side

Also, this is Lanhydrock. The house is owned by Viscount Cliffden and this house exists since the 1600 and flourished till 1990. Splendid indeed, the kitchen itself has a pastry room, bakehouse, dairy scullery and dairy room. Altogether the house has 50 rooms, including a day nursery, midnight nursery, school room, nursery bath, nanny room, lordship's room, ladyship's room and a drawing room as shown below. The ceiling engravings shown below includes a story from the old testament bible! This estate is definitely worth a visit.