Poldice

Poldice was a mining area in south-west Cornwall, England, UK, between Twelveheads and St Day. Mining for tin had taken place since at least the 1500s, before the Poldice Valley became an important part of the Cornish mining boom of the 1800s, when copper replaced tin in terms of importance at the mine.

By the 1860s, the copper industry was in decline and closure of the mine was avoided by switching to arsenic extraction, although metals were still being mined albeit in decreasing quantities. By the 1910s most of the activity was over, but small-scale mining continued into the 1920s.

Apart from the enormous quantities of more common substances mined at Poldice, the area was also known for rarer and more valuable minerals including chalcophyllite, olivenite, mimetite and liroconite.

The ruins of many mine buildings and mineshafts are still present in the Poldice Valley, which has not seen any further development since the end of mining.

References

* "Poldice Valley", Bob Acton, Landfall Publications, 1990.