Gwennap

Gwennap is a parish about 3 miles south-east of Redruth in the heart of the former Cornish copper mining district. The parish is best known for Gwennap Pit, a circular terraced amphitheatre that was formed by subsidence from old mine workings. John Wesley preached here 18 times between 1762 and 1789, attracted by the natural acoustic properties and the large mining population of the area. The pit is still used for outdoor services on Whit Sunday and remains a place of Methodist pilgrimage; a small visitor centre explains the site’s history.

The surrounding area was among the most intensively mined in the world during the 18th and 19th centuries. Engine houses, spoil heaps, and chimney stacks dot the landscape - much of it now protected as part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. The village of Carharrack is within the parish, and St Day (once known as “the richest square mile in the world” during the copper boom) is about 2 miles north.

Redruth, with its shops and rail connection to Plymouth and Penzance, is about 3 miles north-west. Falmouth is about 8 miles south. Holiday accommodation in the Gwennap area is in converted mining-era cottages and farm buildings, used as a base for the mid-Cornwall mining landscape and for accessing both north and south coasts.