Smoking engine houses spectacle

An attempt has been made to recreate the skyline of more than century ago in Cornwall.

Thousands of people turned out to watch the spectacle on Monday as fires were lit at 21 mine engine houses.

The aim of the event, organised by Cornwall Mining Heritage, was to recreate the smoking engine house chimneys of the 18th and 19th century.

Smoking Chimneys was the first of a week of events, known as Mine and Yours, to celebrate Cornwall's past.

Family names

Deborah Boden, Cornwall World Heritage Site co-ordinator, said the sight was spectacular.

"It's on a par with the pyramids, the Great Wall of China and Stonehenge and it's here in Cornwall."

Forty volunteers started the 21 chimney fires at exactly 2015 BST using straw and hay.

The mines and shafts were named after the families who owned them, including Grenville, Pendarves, Bassetts, Daubuz and Marriott.

Despite the familiar sight of the smoking chimneys, black and white photographs from the Cornish Studies Library show a vastly different landscape 100 years ago.

"Far from being green, it was covered in all the waste tips and little grew on them because they were acidic," historian Wesley Rickard from the King Edward Mine Museum told BBC News.

"They were rust coloured from the iron deposits and it was desolation in some respects, but a lot of people made money out of it."

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Cornish Mining World Heritage
Cornish Mining: Mine and Yours
BBC Cornwall: Mine and Yours feature
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