A short circular walk around the foot paths of Halamanning Mine, Croft Gothal and Retallack mines, at our local village of St Hilary in West Cornwall
Where we live is a UNESCO World Heritage Mining site in this part of West Cornwall and this walk takes you around three of our local tin mines. It can be accessed from the front door, here at The Woodland Collection by walking down the hill to Relubbus and taking the first left hand track at the bottom of the hill, to join the footpaths we mention here.
However, as our dogs don’t like traffic, we drove the short mile to St Hilary, turned Left to Halamanning and left again, to park up at the left hand side of the Halamanning mine workings. The ground here is hard and there was no mud along the tracks so walking boots in the Summer are fine, but wellies are needed in the Winter as the fishing lakes at the bottom of the valley can overflow onto the tracks.
The walk is just under 2 miles long and can be extended by using other crossing footpaths throughout the area. It’s very quiet (it would be very unusual to see anyone else walking around here) and so bird and animal wildlife are plentiful to see. There are a couple of Geo Caches around some of the paths which are fun to look out for if you have the app.
Start facing East (looking towards The Woodland Collection). Walk along the hard track until it forks. Take the right hand fork of the path. Head along here over the top of the mine workings where the views of the surrounding farmland and valley are in front of you. Head down the hill until you get to another fork with a sign on the tree. Keep to the LEFT of the Tree and continue to head down to the bottom of the valley past a couple of small granite cottages.
When you get to the bottom turn LEFT, heading in a Northerly direction along the floor of the valley away from Millpool towards Relubbus. There are fishing lakes and ponds to the right of you, and Kingfishers can be seen dipping into the ponds on a sunny afternoon.
Carry on walking past the first left hand footpath for another 300 yards, past a larger fishing lake on the right, to a natural fork in the path. Take the left hand path which will take you back up to Halamanning through the reeds which were used for thatching roofs 200 years ago. If you take the right hand path it will take you back to Relubbus and home.
Halamanning mine, Croft Gothal and Retallack mines exploited a tract of land between Higher Downs and the River Hayle. They were worked from 1830 to 1858 and reworked again in 1912.
These routes are the ones miners would have travelled between the mines and would have been used by the farmers and labourers on their way to work too.
