World Heritage Identification Number: 1215
World Heritage since: 2006
Category: Cultural Heritage
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇬🇧 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Continent: Europe
UNESCO World Region: Europe and North America
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The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape: A Testament to the Industrial Revolution
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006, offers a unique insight into the industrial revolution that swept through Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. This region, located in the southwest of England, played a pivotal role in the global mining industry, particularly in the production of copper.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
Much of the landscape of Cornwall and West Devon was transformed in the 18th and early 19th centuries as a result of the rapid growth of pioneering copper and tin mining. Its deep underground mines, engine houses, foundries, new towns, smallholdings, ports and harbours, and their ancillary industries together reflect prolific innovation which, in the early 19th century, enabled the region to produce two-thirds of the world’s supply of copper. The substantial remains are a testimony to the contribution Cornwall and West Devon made to the Industrial Revolution in the rest of Britain and to the fundamental influence the area had on the mining world at large. Cornish technology embodied in engines, engine houses and mining equipment was exported around the world. Cornwall and West Devon were the heartland from which mining technology rapidly spread.
Encyclopedia Record: Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes in Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of England. The site was added to the World Heritage List during the 30th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Vilnius, July 2006. Following plans in 2011 to restart mining at South Crofty, and to build a supermarket at Hayle Harbour, the World Heritage Committee drafted a decision in 2014 to put the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger, but this was rejected at the 38th Committee Session at Doha, Qatar, in favour of a follow-up Reactive Monitoring Mission.Additional Site Details
Area: 19,719 hectares
(iii) — Unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition
(iv) — Outstanding example of a type of building or landscape
Coordinates: 50.1361111111 , -5.3836111111
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© John Gibson, CC BY-SA 2.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
