C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 19 For further information on Geevor Mine and the Cornish MiningWorld Heritage Site see www.geevor.com and www.cornishmining.org.uk. Thanks to Adam Sharpe for the use of images taken during conservation. Ainsley Cocks is research and information officer for the Cornish MiningWorld Heritage Site. The conservation programme was developed following an archaeological assessment and survey by Adam Sharpe, a senior archaeologist within the historic environment service of Cornwall County Council. Sharpe’s extensive background in mining archaeology, coupled with his long association with the mine, dating from the first site works there in the early 1990s, brought essential knowledge to the project. Brian Armstrong, building surveyor and contract administrator with Stratton & Holborow, Truro, worked alongside Sharpe, overseeing the detailed design and delivery of the work. Since 2001 Geevor has been managed by Pendeen Community Heritage, a registered charity. While maintaining the site and developing its education potential, the organisation strongly maintains the community focus of the mine at the heart of the St Just area. The mine is a candidate site for ‘key centre’ status in relation to the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, or ‘Cornish mining’, as inscribed by Unesco in 2006. The world heritage site key centres, three of which are proposed across Cornwall and west Devon, will be the principal interpretation sites for Cornish mining, where the global significance of the outstanding mining landscapes is explained. A bid for Heritage Lottery Funding was proposed as the best way of securing the funds necessary for the consolidation works. A project development team within Cornwall County Council was assembled and charged with the preparation of an application. Detailed estimates were prepared for all the features requiring work, in addition to costings for a new interpretive museum which was to be located within the mine’s former Top Fitting Shop. A grant for development stage funds was obtained in early 2006. The full funding bid was successfully delivered in the following July. Additional funds from Objective One, Cornwall County Council, Penwith District Council, the National Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) totalled £3.8 million for the various site works, with around £800,000 of this figure being dedicated for the new museum. Entitled ‘Hard Rock’, the museum posed an interesting challenge. The new facility had to be constructed within the shell of the Top Fitting Shop, without altering the fabric of the existing structure: almost the whole site has nationally protected scheduled monument status. A total of 19 mine buildings and other structures were chosen for consolidation as part of the planned programme of works. This included the large New Table Section extension of the ore dressing mill, constructed in 1979. Great care was taken in selecting the most suitable form of cladding to replace the steel sheeting for this building, which had deteriorated quickly due to salt corrosion. More historic areas of the mine were also given attention, including the two Brunton pattern arsenic calciners, dating from 1915 and 1919, which similarly required re-roofing. These once commonplace features of mine dressing floors are especially rare today, with only a few surviving anywhere in the world with their machinery intact.Wetlaid scantle slate was specified for the roof covering, replicating the original, with their distinctive hipped roofs surmounted by louvered clerestory ventilators, an essential feature of this type of calciner. By autumn 2008 the bulk of site works had been completed, with the Hard Rock Museum being the final element of the project. Staged over two floors, the museum introduces tin as an ore and industrial metal. It covers the many stages of mining, crushing and refining, to produce the finished ‘black tin’ for sale. There are also displays covering geology, the history of the mine and the social life of the workforce. The eye-catching design and carefully conceived interactive content for this is the product of a close-working partnership between the staff of Geevor and those of Gendall Design, Falmouth. After many months hard work, the opening ceremony was held in October 2008 to celebrate the completion of the conservation programme and museum development. An enthusiastic audience witnessed the cutting of the ceremonial ribbon by Mrs Winnie Sevier, daughter of former Geevor Mine manager Frederick Charles Cann (who assumed the position around 1920) and wife of his successor. The joists and purlins forming the roof structure of the western Brunton calciner Wet-laid scantle slate being applied to the calciner extension. Only traditional lime mortar has been used for the slate bedding, in line with current best practice conservation techniques TheWestern Calciner completed, with its louvered clerestory ventilator restored
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