Wheal Coates

Wheal Coates is one of Cornwall’s most recognisable former mine sites, standing high on the cliffs between St Agnes Head and Chapel Porth. Its surviving engine houses and mine buildings sit directly above the Atlantic, creating one of the clearest examples of how closely Cornwall’s mining industry was tied to its coastal landscape.

The mine opened in 1802 and was worked mainly for tin until 1889. Its best-known structure is the Towanroath pumping engine house, which once housed machinery used to remove water from mine workings extending deep underground and out beneath the sea. The wider site also includes the remains of winding and processing buildings, all part of the St Agnes Mining District within the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.

This collection focuses on Wheal Coates from above, showing the old stone buildings against the cliffs, surrounding heathland and deep blue Atlantic. The aerial views place the mine within the wider coastline and show the scale of the landscape in which generations of Cornish miners worked.