World Heritage Bid Success
The bid for Cornwall to become a World Heritage Site, has been approved by UNESCO. The bid means that the social and cultural importance of the mining landscape ranks with other world class sites such as the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal.

Cornish Mining represents one of the longest histories of industrial heritage conservation in the world and is unique in being the first of its kind concerned with the mining and ore processing of tin and arsenic, together with copper and other industrial metals.

The World Heritage Site covers mining landscapes dating from 1700 to 1914, when deep hard-rock mining was developed locally and major technological developments within the area helped to transform mining both locally and worldwide.

Made up of ten distinct but integrated areas where the physical remains of mining from this period are best represented, the Site includes the mines themselves, the remains of the early infrastructure and the surviving evidence of its social and economic consequences including distinctive settlement patterns.

Hayle is one of the 10 identified areas and plays an integral part in the designation by virtue of its long association with engineering, smelting and of course its once busy and prosperous harbour. In granting World Heritage Status ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) stated that it considers that the current proposals for the development at Hayle Harbour would not be consistent with the importance of Hayle as the main port of the mining industry and thus a key part of the nominated cultural landscape."

A spokesperson said “The World Heritage Inscription seeks to identify, protect and preserve the world's cultural and natural heritage considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape now officially belongs to the world and we are the custodians charged with ensuring our heritage is preserved for the enjoyment of future worldwide generations.”

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