King Edward Mine Museum
+44 1209 614681

Despite the current situation, King Edward Mine Museum is having an excellent summer season. Since we opened on 21st July, our visitor numbers have increased and we have gained many new volunteers. Thanks to our dedicated guides, we have managed to run tours of the museum, keeping groups socially distant. Our regular outside team have had new helpers and some of our buildings have had a coat of fresh paint. Please remember that if you would like to visit us in 2020, ther...e are only three weeks remaining as we close on Sunday 27th Sept for the winter. Thank you to all our supporters who spread the word about this unique part of Cornish heritage.

In August, the BBC was filming at King Edward Mine for the programme Countryfile. There will be an item about the shift to electric cars in the UK over the next five years and the vital part that Cornwall may play in this. The presenter, Tom Heap was driving a Tesla electric car and his interview will feature Jeremy Wrathall of Cornish Lithium. The UK Government plans to invest in the extraction of lithium at a location near to Redruth, Cornwall for for use in electric v...ehicles. You may catch a glimse of our two iconic engine houses at Fortescues and the UNESCO World Heritage Area in the background. Cornwall was a major source of metals for the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but may play a vital role in the green technology of the future. The programme is scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday 23rd August at 7pm. There is some drone footage to be included so don’t miss out on seeing our wonderful mining landscape from the air.

King Edward Mine manages 22 acres of mining landscape and 4 historic Cornish Engine Houses. On a beautiful July day, Phil Harris of the Cornwall Butterfly and Moth society continues his talk about the unique habitat and some of the plants, insects and birds that you can discover for yourselves a short walk along the Great Flat Lode trail. There is so much to see and learn at King Edward Mine. Visit us summer 2020.

This week was very special at King Edward Mine. Our mill volunteers have powered up our Frue Vanner, driven by belts. The Frue Vanner was invented in 1874, by William Frue, Superintendent of the Silver Islet Mine, Ontario, Canada and in the early 20th century the Frue Vanner was a machine commonly used for washing tin ore. Dolcoath Mine, near Camborne had at least 26 in use in the early 20th century. After shaking tables began to be used for gravity separation, almost all t...he Frue Vanners in the world were scrapped and within a short time, almost none remained. King Edward Mine has the only model left in the world. Come and see this and our other historic working mining equipment in our unique Cornish tin mill.

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King Edward Mine re-opens tomorrow (Tuesday 21st July) for our summer season of 2020. We have introduced some new measures to keep both you and our volunteers safe from the COVID virus. Social distancing of 2 metres between individual groups will be required. If we have a queue of visitors, we may ask for you to wait in the Calciner building or collect a drink and cake from the café (if open).We are providing hand sanitisers at various point and have hot water in the toi...lets for hand washing. We would encourage you to wear face covering and it will be mandatory in our shop from Friday 24th July. It would be helpful if you could pay using a contactless card and refrain from touching the exhibits. In order to facilitate contact tracing, we will ask you to provide one name and email address or telephone number (stored for 21 days and then destroyed). Despite these changes, you will be to see our unique working Cornish tin mill and learn about the history of mining. Our shop will be open selling mining books and hand-made local gifts. We look forward to welcoming you through the summer of 2020.

To all our loyal supporters, we are hoping to re-open for the summer on Tuesday 21st July 2020 for four days a week. We have been busy over the past few months, putting in place many special arrangements for the safety of our volunteers and visitors. For example, our toilets have been improved, screens erected in the shop, and hand sanitising stations put in place. We have also been planning our tours so that we can ensure that our visitors can remain socially distant from other groups. We hope that you will visit our museum and shop in the summer of 2020. We have missed you and will announce our opening later this month.

On a sunny day in June 2020, Phil Harris of the Cornwall Butterfly and Moth Society talks about the plants, birds and insects on this mine site. King Edward Mine lies within the UNESCO World Heritage Mining Landscape and visitors can enjoy nature by walking the circular Great Flat Lode Trail that runs past King Edward Mine Museum. There is plenty of free parking, a cafe, shop and toilets.

Our museum is around a mile from Camborne where the famous Climax Rock Drill & Engineering Company used to be. The manufacturing of rock-drills started in 1878. The firm employed hundreds of people until it was taken over by Holman Brothers Ltd. At King Edward Mine, we have amazing volunteers. The engineering team found a historic, rare Climax Rock-Drill Sharpener. See their remarkable skills and dedication as they took the rusty relic apart, cleaned it and re-assembled for a new exhibition. You can watch the story with the pictures on Youtube or listen as audio only on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com//king-edward-mine-/id1507656576. We recorded this throught the internet during COVID distancing, another technical challenge!

Supporters of King Edward Mine may enjoy this new 17 minute podcast published 24th April 2020. It is an interview with Richard Williams CEO of Strongbow Exploration who are developing South Crofty Mine. Richard talks about the importance of tin as a strategic mineral and the recent discovery of high grade copper-tin mineralisation between the historic United Mine and Consolidated Mines at Strongbow’s United Downs exploration project. The discovery was made by Cornish Lithium who have the right to explore Strongbow’s mineral rights in Cornwall for lithium in brine occurrences while Strongbow retains the rights to any hard rock mineralisation.