28th August 2007

NEW CURATOR FOR GEEVOR MUSEUM

Jo Warburton joins Geevor Tin Mine Museum & Heritage Centre on 3rd September as Curator.

Jo was previously Curator and Head of Collections at the National Maritime Museum, Falmouth where she built a strong reputation for her fine curatorial and display work. She was instrumental in helping the National Maritime Museum gain the status of a national museum, an aspiration shared by the Trustees of Geevor.

Jo is 33 years old and lives in Penzance. She grew up in Scarborough and has an honours degree in History from Lancaster University and gained a Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. Before moving to Cornwall, she worked at museums in Nottingham, Buckinghamshire and the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. She joined the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth five years ago as Curator/Head of Collections. Jo said “I can’t wait to get stuck in to my new job at Geevor”.

Bill Lakin, Chair of Trustees at Pendeen Community Heritage, the charity that manages Geevor for Cornwall County Council, said “Jo joins us at an exciting stage of Geevor's development. She will make a major contribution to the new museum gallery that we will open next year.”

26th July 2007

AUSSIE MUSEUM TO TRACE ST JUST MINERS

Staff and volunteers at Geevor Tin Mine are working with the Moonta Mining Museum, 100 miles north-west of Adelaide in South Australia, exploring the migration of skilled miners and other artisans from Cornwall. Staff at the Museum are particularly interested in family history and keen to track families who left St Just and the surrounding area to work in Australia during the late 1800s.

Traces of copper were found at what was to become Moonta in 1861 and the discovery led to a rapid influx of skilled workers from Cornwall who, with their cutting-edge skills and technology, accelerated the development of deep mining in the area. Cornish methods were applied in construction, design, labour organisation and the mine works. Cornish families settled in familiar village patterns around the mines, and retained their traditions and religious beliefs. During the prosperous years of the late 1800s, Moonta had a population of 12,000 and is today recognised as a significant part of the area alternately known as Australia's ‘Copper Triangle’ and ‘Little Cornwall’.

Hughes Engine House at Moonta, South Australia

The sharing of family histories and images of the Mining Landscape at both Geevor and Moonta will be presented in an exhibition, to be known as the ‘Cousin Jack’ Project, opening at Geevor later in the year. Fiona Young, Geevor’s Education Manager said “This is an opportunity for Geevor to work with this very popular Australian museum and to explore the historical and visual connections. There has already been tremendous response from Cornish families keen to learn about their relatives and the history of their families who settled in Australia.”

Children can join in the exploration of the mining heritage of Geevor in a photography and printmaking workshop to be held on 7th August, creating photographs, collograph plates and prints and learning how to take a quality photograph and print it. More information can be obtained from Fiona Young at Geevor, tel. 01736 788662

9th July 2007

ARCHAEOLOGY WALK AT GEEVOR

Geevor Tin Mine is marking National Archaeology Week with a guided walk to some of the local moorland sites on Sunday 15th July, led by National Trust Archaeologist Paul Bonnington. Paul is a brilliant guide to local antiquities and has expert knowledge of Bronze and Iron Age culture in the area.

Paul will lead visitors to interesting, yet hard to find archaeological sites and investigate the huge richness and history of the far west of Cornwall. The aim of this annual event is to encourage young people and their families to visit sites of archaeological and historical interest to see archaeology in action and to take part in activities on-site.

“The scenery is of course wonderful and all we need is fine weather to make it perfect” said Bill Lakin, Chair of the Trustees at Pendeen Community Heritage, the charity that manages Geevor for Cornwall County Council.

The guided walk sets off from the car park at Geevor Tin Mine on Sunday 15th July at 2.00 pm and is free!

 

2nd July 2007

NATIONAL AWARD FOR GEEVOR

Geevor Tin Mine Museum & Heritage Centre has been awarded a prestigious Sandford Award for Heritage Education.

Geevor now stands alongside 150 Sandford Award holders – an impressive list that includes Edinburgh Castle, Hampton Court Palace, The Tower of London, the Roman Baths and Pump Room in Bath, Kenilworth Castle, Blenheim Palace and The Wallace Collection. Bill Lakin, Chair of the Trustees at Pendeen Community Heritage, the charity that manages Geevor for Cornwall County Council, said “We are all thrilled to be joining such exalted company!”

Sandford Awards are presented by The Heritage Education Trust to historic houses, museums, galleries, cathedrals, gardens and historic artifacts within the historical and cultural environments of the United Kingdom and Ireland in recognition of the quality of their educational services and facilities and their outstanding contribution to heritage education.

Geevor was inspected on May 24th by a panel of independent Judges during a visit by pupils and teachers of Buryan School. The current panel of Sandford Award Judges is drawn from professional educationalists including OFSTED Inspectors, former head teachers, education consultants and heritage property based education officers. Jo Buckingham, Geevor’s Education Development Officer said “The children’s behaviour was impeccable during the inspection, they were obviously enjoying their workshop and although the school’s teachers were aware of the Judges, the children didn’t feel that their experience of Geevor’s tin mining heritage was being examined.”

The Award is an endorsement of the excellent work in education undertaken by all the staff at Geevor. An intense development programme of learning workshops has been undertaken over the past two years and school visits to the site have increased dramatically. Geevor’s education team has ensured that the workshops available to schools link into the National Curriculum and complement the work undertaken in the classroom.

This year Jo Buckingham has visited schools so that children can learn about tin mining and handle artefacts before they visit Geevor. Feedback from the teachers has shown that these visits are valuable in enhancing the visit. Pupils studying tin mining at a Bude school were unable to visit the site so Jo travelled to north Cornwall to take Geevor into the classroom. Jonathan Palk, Acting Headteacher of the school said, “Jo captivated them with her tales and many thought that her session was the best of the week. Through the objects and resources all the children had a chance to get a real ‘feel’ of the mines.”

Fiona Young, Geevor’s Education Manager, said “These are exciting times in Geevor’s development. This award belongs to everybody working on site – the staff pull together as a team to ensure that every education visit is of a standard befitting the importance of tin mining to the County of Cornwall.”

The attached photo shows pupils from Buryan School during their visit to Geevor.

20th June 2007

‘HARD ROCK’ EXHIBITION COMES TO GEEVOR TIN MINE

Geevor Tin Mine Museum & Heritage Centre plays host to a major exhibition of art works created by pupils of Education Out Of School, Hospital School (C.H.E.S.), Penair, Pencalenick, Richard Lander, Roseland, Truro High and Truro School.

The school groups collaborated on ‘Hard Rock’, a major art project inspired by the unique mining heritage of Cornwall, following a series of visits to Geevor Tin Mine.

The students used a variety of media ranging from wood to ceramic and worked with individual artists including Diane Spiers, Artist in Residence at Geevor, to produce this exciting exhibition. Fiona Young, Geevor’s Education Manager said “What these young people have achieved through this art project is truly inspiring. The standard of work is quite exceptional and members of staff at Geevor are thrilled to display the art throughout the summer so that visitors to the site can enjoy their work. This is indeed a celebration of our World Heritage Status”.

This is just the latest initiative in Geevor’s ongoing commitment to broadening knowledge of Cornwall’s mining history, and the county’s position at the forefront of technological development during the Industrial Revolution, through educational art experiences. Geevor is Britain’s most complete tin mining site and attracts educational visits from schools across the country and from mainland Europe.

Admission to the exhibition, organised by the Combined Truro Schools Arts Events (CTSAE), is free and the students’ work will be on show at Geevor for the duration of the summer, from 29th June.

10th May 2007

GEEVOR’S CLIFF TOP CAFE´ REOPENS

The Café is rightly famous for its traditional pasties, made from a generations old, secret recipe. “They are our most popular dish - on a busy day we'll sell a hundred or more” says Margaret “We only use the best local ingredients so our visitors can be confident they're getting a taste of the real thing - a genuine Cornish Pasty." Margaret and John also make a vegetable and a cheese and onion pasty option and a wide selection of snacks and meals is priced from £2.30 to £4.70.

With a newly refurbished and equipped kitchen, Sunday lunches at the Count House Cafe? are now on the menu. Traditional roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and fresh vegetables, or roast chicken, is proving so popular with locals and visitors alike that booking is now advisable – telephone the Café on 01736 788662 - and with home made puddings like apple pie, rhubarb crumble and steamed syrup sponge pudding, all served with custard or cream and an expanded range of home made cakes including Cornish Hevva Cake, Lemon Drizzle Cake, Shortbread and Flapjacks, a brisk walk round the Geevor site, the biggest mining history site in the UK, is a must!

16th April 2007

VISITORS FLOCK TO GEEVOR

Managers at Geevor Tin Mine Museum & Heritage Centre report a huge boost in visitors in the 12 months up to the end of March this year. The site, the UK’s biggest mining history educational centre, attracted over 40,000 visitors for the first time, up 30% on the previous year.

“With a new £3.8 million funding package in place, Geevor is poised to increase visitor numbers still further” said Bill Lakin, Chair of the Trustees of Pendeen Community Heritage, the charity that manages Geevor for Cornwall County Council. “Work is expected to start on the next phase by the end of this month. This will include a major programme of restoration of the historic buildings of the site and the creation of a completely new set of museum galleries. The project, when completed, will make Geevor not just the best mining museum in the country but one of the best museums in the world.” The target for the site is to achieve the status of the National Museum of Hard Rock Mining. “There are three national coal mining museums already” explained Bill Lakin “and Geevor is the most appropriate site in the UK for a hard rock museum.”

26th March 2007

FREE ADMISSION TO GEEVOR ON WORLD HERITAGE DAY

Managers and staff at Geevor Tin Mine Museum & Heritage Centre are to hold a World Heritage Day on Sunday 1st April to celebrate the site’s World Heritage Status. Unesco's award in the summer of 2006 of to the mining landscape centred around 10 areas of the former mining districts of Cornwall and West Devon.

The site, including the Museum, surface buildings and the underground tour, will be open to all, free of charge, on Sunday 1st April only. The highlight of the day will be a unique chance to see how tin is produced. Local metalworker and mining expert Geoff Treseder, who worked at Geevor as a sampler for many years, collecting samples of ore from areas of the mine that were being worked and analysing them for tin and other mineral content, will demonstrate how the rock containing tin ore is crushed, separated and smelted. The entire process takes less than an hour.

Managers and staff at Geevor hope that as many people as possible, especially those from the local area, will take this chance to visit the site and find out about the exciting new developments that will be taking place over the next year, funded by a £3.4 million grant from Heritage Lottery Fund and European Community Objective One.

The Cafe, now under new management, will be open to all as usual, as will the shop, with a wide range of mining related and other locally produced items.

27th March 2007

GEEVOR TIN MINE MUSEUM & HERITAGE CENTRE

Last week, Geevor Tin Mine was a hive of activity and invention as pupils from Mounts Bay, Humphy Davy and Cape Cornwall Schools competed in Geevor’s Water Wheel Scrapheap Challenge – to build a water wheel powerful enough to pull a tram cart up a track way. Fiona Young, the Education Manager at Geevor, said “The event was so successful that we are planning to hold it every year. We’ve also decided to open the challenge up to the public on Tuesday the 3rd of April during the Easter holidays. So if anyone is interested in taking up the challenge come to Geevor Tin Mine and have a go!”

Visitors will design a water wheel to pull a tram cart and build it, using glue guns and staplers, from recycled milk cartons, plastic containers, plastic piping, board and wooden pallets and crates collected from the Geevor site and recyclable material provided by local companies supporting the event. The water wheel that pulls the tram cart the greatest distance within one minute will be declared the winner.

Next week, Jo Buckingham, Geevor’s Education Development Officer, will be going into the schools to award the prizes and the prestigious title of Scrapheap Challenge Champions to the winning teams. Pictured is the Humphry Davy Team, ‘The Terrible Twosome’ of Luke Eddie and Forrest Harris with their waterwheel named Satin, who won the prize of £200 worth of equipment for their school for the fastest water wheel of the competition. Also pictured is Cape Cornwall School’s team ‘The Lemonheads,’ Caroline Lay, Rosanna Evans and Rosie Brenton, who won a prize of £50 worth of equipment for the design of their wheel named The Wonder Wheel 2.

But the students took home more than prizes. After the event, students from Mounts Bay School all said that they had learnt something really interesting and that science and engineering was fun, interesting and enjoyable.

For more information please contact Jo Buckingham at Geevor on 01736 786059.

4th January 2007

The funding package will help Geevor and bring new opportunities to the local community. Trustees at Pendeen Community Heritage, the charity that manages Geevor for Cornwall County Council, recognise the need for properly paid year round employment, and the need for career structures that will help stop young people leaving the area, breaking the pattern of low wage seasonal employment in tourism and agriculture. The project sets targets to achieve these aims and already the increasing visitor numbers have led to recruitment. By next year there will 21.5 full time equivalent jobs at Geevor and visitor numbers will rise from almost 40,000 per year to 50,000. The wider impact on the local economy has been assessed at £10m p.a. indirectly creating another 11 full time equivalent jobs. “This is just a start” explains Bill Lakin, Chair of the Trustees of PCH. “The next phase will be to develop more underground access for visitors and give them the best underground experience in the UK. The target for the site is to achieve the status of the National Museum of Hard Rock Mining – there are three national coal mining museums already, and Geevor is the most appropriate site in the UK for a hard rock museum.”

The new jobs created both directly and indirectly by the regeneration of the site and the increase in visitor numbers will begin to address the problems of high levels of multiple deprivation, low incomes, high unemployment and poor health relative to the rest of the UK in the Penwith district and areas surrounding Geevor identified by The Office of National Statistics report of July 2006

The money will pay for local craftsmen who will use their traditional skills to restore and conserve 19 derelict buildings on the site and create a new museum in one of the old engineering shops. “We want to make this not just the best mining museum in the country but one of the best small museums in the world” said John Negus, project officer for the works programme. The striking and innovative design work for the new museum is being undertaken by Gendalls: the Falmouth based design agency fought off competition from the leading museum design houses in the country to win the contract.

Bill Lakin concluded “In 2001 Pendeen Community Heritage won the management contract to operate Geevor and then, in 2004, Cornwall County Council extended the contract for another 10 years. One of the central elements of the tender submitted in 2001 was that Geevor had the power to transform the local area. This new funding will enable us to start to deliver this transformation.”