Kernow Kev, Hobbling Haunted & Mysterious Cornwall – South Wheal Frances Mine

When this gargantuan of Cornish industry first opened its gaping, arched eyelids in the eighteen-hundreds, its infant gaze would have taken in an endless blue blanket – or more likely, a thick, ashen covering of cloud, cleansing its coarse skin with a deluge of good ole Kernewek rain. Birds of black feather and harsh cries would swoop over or touch down on its towering brow.

Fast forward two centuries and a myriad of human achievement has graced the skies overhead, including that modern day triumph the former copper and tin mine’s now old and tired eyes are studying in my first photo. Sunlight catching the row of glass windows in a strobe display; the roar so much lower and louder than the calls of the flocking and migrating creatures it was born under; the toxic trail scarring and suffocating the heavens.

The metal tube thundering above is just doing its job, running people from here to there, aiding its inhabitant’s quests to seek sun or discover the World. But this creaking giant has played its part. Now it can sit at ease in its hard-earned retirement. Standing at the steel framework that keeps Marriott’s 622-metre-deep shaft separated from the public, I hear only the screeching of bats in their plunging colony, living in its dark depths, and the gentle whisper of stirring air and trickling water – the booms of pumping machinery and fracturing ore left to the long ago past.

But what of the people that once laboured here? The ghosts that remain to walk the dank tunnels, that crumble of rubbly earth underfoot passing you by, that you could hear yet see no cause of. Can they rest like the building? Or are they trapped in a physically gruelling infinity? Their long-dead eyes can see the huge, human-made bird above, but do they understand its purpose? For many of them, the ‘package holiday’ would have just been some mythical thing that a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend may have mentioned, if they’d even heard the term at all. And now they’re stuck here, roaming the ruins for eternity, tortured by wonderers visiting from this modern world that moved on so unceremoniously and condemned their souls to history.

South Wheal Frances Mine spreads its haunting footprint within the Great Flat Lode, a once lucrative and thriving piece of copper and tin mining history. Walk, jog, jump on your horse, or cycle the 7.5-mile circular route, though if you choose the latter option, don’t be a Kev; a mountain bike is way more suitable than a road bike. A slight detour and you can take in the remains of the county’s last tin smelter at Carnkie. Or head up the rock hill for some of the farthest-reaching views Cornwall has to offer, taking in the vast and varying landscape as you stand at the base of the quirky castle, partially supported by boulders, which in a previous form in the late seventeen-hundreds became a meeting place for the Freemasons. As for the ruins of South Wheal Frances, my personal preference is to visit at dusk, alone, when the spirits slink through the shadows freely and you can proper creep the crap out of yourself. Though for goodness’ sake, take a torch and a mobile phone. I don’t want you to sue me if my recommendation lands you with a broken ankle, and we’d all prefer if you could make a call if you did fall and do yourself some mischief.

Yeghes da!