National Trust Volunteer Geowalk

On 11th June I went for a wander with a fab group of volunteers for the National Trust. We had a lovely day in the sunshine at Botallack on the Tin Coast, sharing our stories and knowledge of this amazing stretch of coastline.

This was organised as part of my ongoing work with the National Trust in west Cornwall, with our common goal of conserving and promoting the natural landscape and history of the area. The Tin Coast is famed for its mining history, and the legacy that industry has had on the landscape. All of this has its roots in the geology that lies beneath.

The geology of Botallack is unique, influenced by the granites that make up the west Penwith peninsula. The geological processes that enriched metals in mineral veins along this stretch of coast are what the miners searched for and exploited, in places up to a mile out under the sea!

It was these engineering challenges that led to the incredible industrial archaeology we see here. As a geologist, I am always fascinated to hear about things from a historian’s or archaeologist’s perspective, and this walk certainly helped with this. The volunteers have a lovely for the landscape as much as I do, and I really enjoyed imparting my knowledge of the geology whilst listening to their knowledge of this site.

A big thank you to Katie Reynolds at the National Trust for organising this event. I look forward to running something similar again soon.