Tin Coast Walking Tours: Botallack Mine

Due to the current lockdown the walks have now been postponed until later in 2021.

Exploring West Penwith stories and songs with Ben Sutcliffe and Mary Woodvine

Tin Coast Walking Tours offer three fun, unique and creative guided circular walks around West Penwith and the Tinners Way, visiting many fascinating and rare Cornish antiquities (each walk approximately 8 kilometres / 5 miles). Musician Ben Sutcliffe from ‘The People’s String Foundation’ has teamed up with actor/storyteller Mary Woodvine to tell local myths and fables along the way.  Ben and Mary will sing and play Cornish folk music and educate about Cornwall’s rich history, past and present culture and thriving wildlife.

Walk 2 – Botallack Mine 

Parking: Botallack Mine Count House (National Trust Parking £4) – TR197QQ 

Meeting Place: Outside the Botallack Mine Count House OS ref: 367333 (worth checking a map before arriving – from the village of Botallack the National Trust have not signposted the mine attraction incredibly well).

8.66km
181.1m total ascent

Dates available:

• 9th January 
• 16th January 
• 23rd January 

This circular walk begins at Botallack Mine’s Count House and heads through it’s historic and beautiful ruins with views featured in the famous Poldark series. At Wheal Owles mine stack (the site of a mining tragedy c.1893) which is now a protected site for bats, the walk heads inland towards the Bronze Age antiquities of Carnyorth Common. Along the Tinner’s Way, past an ancient lake is the magnificent Tregeseal Stone Circle (c.2500 – 1500BC) once used by the Celts for rituals and festivals.  Ben and Mary’s route heads into the heart of the moor to Bronze Age barrows and intriguing holed stones, before visiting Carn Kenidjack (or the ‘Hooting Carn’ as it is commonly known) where various legends and folklores have been told for centuries. The downward route back to Botallack takes in breathtaking views of Cornwall’s field systems and mighty coast, even catching sight of the Isles of Scilly on a clear day.  Last but not least is a journey to the mouth of an enormous cave where miners have dug out tunnels and used as shelter for millennia.

Part of the Tin Coast Events Programme. Commissioned by the Tin Coast Partnership and Cornwall 365.