copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
and
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
mine in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, England, UK.
Heavy metals
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Heavy metals are generally defined as ...
left over in the soil from the mining operations have allowed mosses and lichens to flourish, and today the site is a
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
(SSSI), noted for its
biological
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...
characteristics.
History
The mine was first worked in 1836 as Cornwall Great United Mines, having previously been mined separately as Clanacombe, Stowes and Wheal Prosper mines. The mine was subsequently bought by James Seccombe in 1842 who renamed it Phoenix Mine/Wheal Phoenix in 1844, finally being called Phoenix United Mine when West Phoenix Mine was incorporated.
The mine originally extracted
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
, the 1850s being the mine's peak production of the metal, with a work force of 130. By the 1860s the copper reserves were diminishing but consultant mining engineer, William West, bought a controlling share in the company and equipped the mine to extract
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
in 1864 after samples showed evidence of tin deposits. By 1865 the work force had expanded to 460, continuing to 600 by the 1870s. It used the
Liskeard and Caradon Railway
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was a mineral railway in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, which opened in 1844. It was built to carry the ores of copper and tin, and also granite, from their sources on Caradon Hill down to Moorswater for onwar ...
to transport the ore away and supply the mine with coal. With the price of tin and copper slumping, the West Phoenix Mine ceased operation in 1898. The final shaft, the Prince of Wales Shaft, was closed in 1914.
Geography
The SSSI, notified in 1996, is located within the civil parish of Linkinhorne, on the south-eastern edge of
Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor ( kw, Goon Brenn) is a granite moorland in north-eastern Cornwall, England. It is in size, and dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. It includes Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall, and Rough Tor, a s ...
, north of the town of Liskeard.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 201 ''Plymouth & Launceston''
The SSSI also forms part of ''Phoenix United Mine and
Crow's Nest
A crow's nest is a structure in the upper part of the main mast of a ship or a structure that is used as a lookout point.
On ships, this position ensured the widest field of view for lookouts to spot approaching hazards, other ships, or land by ...
The habitat of the site is dominated by presence of
heavy metals
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Heavy metals are generally defined as ...
from the mining operations within the soil. This has restricted the growth of
vascular plant
Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...
moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...
es and
liverworts
The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ge ...
Cephaloziella nicholsonii
''Cephaloziella'' is a genus of liverworts. ''Cephaloziella varians'' (Gottsche) Steph. is the only liverwort that occurs in the continental Antarctic.
Species
* '' Cephaloziella acanthophora''
* '' Cephaloziella aenigmatica''
* '' Cephalozi ...
''. The nationally scarce liverwort, '' Cephaloziella stellulifera'' is also present within the mine.
Two nationally scarce species of moss, '' Gymnostomum viridulum'' and '' Gymnostomum calcareum'', are supported on the site. The mine is one of only two sites in the world where Cornish path moss (''
Ditrichum cornubicum
''Ditrichum cornubicum'', commonly known as the Cornish path-moss, is a moss endemic to Cornwall, United Kingdom. First discovered in 1963, on a roadside west of Lanner, Cornwall by Jean Paton, it has since been found in two other places within ...
'') grows, the other being
Crow's Nest
A crow's nest is a structure in the upper part of the main mast of a ship or a structure that is used as a lookout point.
On ships, this position ensured the widest field of view for lookouts to spot approaching hazards, other ships, or land by ...
. This moss is a pioneer species of bare or sparsely vegetated, mine-waste laden soils.Greater horseshoe bats (''Rhinolophus ferrumequinum'') use disused mine adits as a winter roosting site, and other bat species feed on the site.