Chapel Porth Beach is a small but popular bay at the bottom of a narrow valley on the St Agnes Heritage Coast.
Arriving at Chapel Porth early in the morning and simply walking along the large expanse of golden sand will make you feel glad to be alive. With the constant roar of the waves breaking on the sand, the breeze from the Atlantic and sea spray in your face, this is one of Cornwall’s natural assets at its best. When the tide’s out there are rock pools and caves to explore, and when conditions are right the surf here is fantastic.
At high tide the rocky shore is a little cramped so head to the cafe just up from the beach where in winter sipping a hot chocolate and watching the ocean is a popular pastime, as is tucking in to the café’s legendary 'hedgehog' ice creams, a concoction of Cornish ice cream, covered in clotted cream and topped with crushed hazelnuts. The dramatic ruins of the old Wheal Coates tin mine are perched on the cliffs above the beach, and the walk from there around the coast to the village of St Agnes gives stunning views.
High on the rugged cliffs above Chapel Porth beach near St Agnes stand the ruins of one of Cornwall's most scenic and iconic mines, Wheal Coates tin mine. The area around Wheal Coates was worked since the medieval period, but most of the present ruins date from 1870.
HISTORY
The earliest mining records for this area date to 1692, but the Wheal Coates mine we see today began in 1815 and operated sporadically until 1914. At its height of productivity Wheal Coates employed 138 people.
Over its lifetime the mine produced 717 tons of tin and 335 tons of copper. The mine followed a seam of ore running out under the sea bed, but had to be abandoned when the seam proved to be unprofitable.
The most immediately recognisable feature at Wheal Coates is the Towanroath engine house. The engine house was built in 1872 when Wheal Coates reopened after a long period of inactivity. Inside the engine house was a steam engine used to pump water from a new shat stretching 185m below the surface.
A beam engine lifted ore to the surface and was also used to power a stamp that crushed the raw ore into coarse particles. This coarse sand was processed in adjacent dressing floors to separate the heavier tin from the lighter waste stone.
The music is by Scott Buckley and the song is called Clear Skies, it can be found on his website www.scottbuckley.com
The video was shot with a DJI Mini 4 Pro drone following the sub 250g drone laws
14 июн 2024
