Poldice Mine

Mining at Poldice (pronounced to rhyme with "spice") was initially for tin. A document from 1512 about a theft of tin "near Poldyth in Wennap" indicates that mining was probably taking place at that point. In the 1690s, Poldice was described as "that unparalleled and inexhaustible tin work…which for about forty years space hath employed yearly from eight hundred to a thousand men and boys."

By 1788, the output of copper ore exceeded that of tin, and by the 1790s it was making a good profit. In the early 19th Century, it was merged with Wheal Unity.

Like many others in the area, the mine was very wet and in 1842 the pumping engine was raising an average of 887 gallons per minute. In the 1860s, mineral prices dropped when large reserves were found in Spain and in the 1870s Poldice became uneconomical due to the cost of pumping water out of the shafts. The engine houses and most of the structures associated with this period of mining are gone. Most of the remains visible today are from a period of re-working for arsenic from the end of the 19th Century until 1929.