In 2007 a bid to UNESCO to classify parts of Cornwall and West Devon as a world heritage site was successful and 'Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape' is now on par with such international treasures as Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China.
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site bid project was compiled on behalf of a family of organisations and individuals with a shared belief in the value of Cornwall’s mining history. Many of the partners in the World Heritage Site own or operate important mining landscapes and attractions, through which the story of Cornish Mining is made available to the public. The World Heritage Site team have developed a Cornish Mining "brand" within which all partners operate.
Where are the South West's World Heritage Sites Located?
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site is a series of ten areas made up of distinctive and recurring patterns of buildings, monuments and sites: the 'components'. Together they represent a unified cultural landscape. These components are determined by, and are central to, the understanding of the Cornish mining industry in the period 1700-1914.
Each Area has its own significance and its own stories to tell. They represent the distinctive way that each Area contributes to the overall significance of the WHS.
Hayle forms one of those ten areas, the WHS Management Plan identifies Hayle as:-
This mining port and industrial 'new town' was also the greatest steam engine manufacturing centre in the world...
The management plan outlines Hayle’s significance, why it is important and how it contributes to the World Heritage site status:
- Hayle was Cornwall’s principal mining port which exported copper ore to the South Wales smelters, importing much of the Welsh coal which fuelled the Cornish steam revolution and was the means by which many of its beam engines were shipped to the far corners of the World.
- The location of two (of three) of Cornwall’s principal iron foundries creating the greatest steam engine manufacturing centre in the C19th world.
- The location of Cornwall’s only major copper smelter.
- Hayle is a unique example of twin ‘company’ industrial ‘new towns’ of Foundry and Copperhouse, these being wholly the product of their industrial past and maritime location, fringing the southern edge of the Hayle estuary in a distinctly linear character.
- Hayle has a massive, landform-scale, maritime infrastructure of extensive quays, wharves and massive sluicing ponds.
- Hayle was the terminus of one of the most important of Cornwall’s early railways (the Hayle Railway, 1834) serving a hinterland stretching eastwards as far as Redruth and Camborne, with their huge market for coal, timber and other materials.
For more information on Cornwall and West Devon Mining World Heritage Site please visit www.cornish-mining.org.uk.