Mineshaft opens yards from home

A giant hole appeared in the garden

Two pensioners have been forced to leave their Cornish home after a 200-feet mineshaft opened up in their garden.

Neighbours of Len and Winnie Semmens - both in their 80s - heard a noise "like thunder" as the hole appeared at St Day Road in Redruth.

It happened only a month after two terraced houses in St Ives had to be condemned when another shaft opened up beneath them.

Mrs Semmens, who returned to collect some belongings and her pet dog Sam, said she was "devastated".

There was another massive rumble and it really frightened her

June Trethowan, witness

"After all it is our life, we are old people and our home is everything," she said.

The Redruth hole was part of a mining system dating back to medieval times.

Mr and Mrs Semmens's home is just a few feet from the widening hole.

They were alerted by George and June Trethowan, who live across the road.

Neighbours' alert

Mrs Trethowan said her husband heard "a sound like thunder going off" when he went out to get his car at about 1800 GMT on Sunday.

"He went across the road and saw the garden had gone, then I went outside the door and heard a terrific rumble."

The hole has continued to crumble

Mrs Trethowan went to alert her neighbours, and as Mrs Semmens came to the door there was another collapse.

"There was another massive rumble and it really frightened her," said Mrs Trethowan.

A small depression appeared in the Semmens's garden last week, and a wall began leaning.

Mining historian Allen Buckley said the hole, called the Rowe's shaft, was part of the Pednedrea mining system, last worked in 1890.

Mr Buckley said some of the area's mining system was medieval and that torrential rain may have brought about the collapse.

Most of the approximate 5,000 shafts in the Camborne-Redruth area have been capped over the centuries, but many are unstable.

Some are not even plotted on any maps.

In October last year, a school was evacuated after a shaft was discovered under the playground during building work.

Pupils at Cusgarne School, near Redruth, took advantage and carried out a project on the school's mine workings.