Voices of the Cornish Mining Landscape

Allen Buckley, former miner, in front of the headgear on 'New Cooks Kitchen Shaft', South Crofty, where he once worked.

Allen began working there in the early 1960s and describes his first trip in the cage down to the mine’s deepest level, over 2,500 feet that took less than a minute to descend.

He remembers the - ‘hot, funky, steamy, smelly, smoke-ridden air. When we stepped into the cage there was an almost impenetrable fog, a smog of filthy air coming out … and I must admit at 6.30 in the morning with just carbide lamps, there was a slight feeling of trepidation, of stepping into this fog, into this cage hanging over a two and a half thousand-foot drop’ …

This was Europe's last working tin mine.

Portrait for the book ‘Voices of the Cornish Mining Landscape’, written by Sharron P. Schwartz.