The Mining Heritage Site 1972
Poldark Heritage site started life in 1972 when Peter Young, a retired Royal Marine, attended an auction in the local hamlet of Trenear with his young daughter Carol. The purpose was to buy a much needed wardrobe. The local forge, Wendron Forge, came up for auction and as the price very slowly rose to £10 Peter thought that the forge was going for a bargain price but was fed up with the slow bidding - to everyone's surprise he bid £100 and became the proud owner of the forge. How he explained the lack of a wardrobe and his new acquisition to his wife we do not know. Next Peter acquired some waste land and with his growing collection of steam engines opened Wendron Forge to the public.
With an ever growing collection of steam engines requiring larger and larger compressors to power them there were a growing number of complaints about the noise generated by the compressor. Peter decided to make a cutting in the hillside into which he intended to place the compressor to deaden the noise. Quite by chance in doing so the long forgotten workings of the Wheal Roots tin mine, described in 1856 as 'an ancient tin mine', were broken into and a new project, opening the workings to the public, was commenced.
Wendron Forge first changed its name to Halfpenny Park and later, with the transmission of the BBC Poldark series, to Poldark Mine. A number of scenes were filmed here, including the underground sequences, and a long relationship between the site and Winston Graham, the author of the Poldark books, developed. This culminated with the launch of the last Poldark book at Poldark Mine in 2002.
In 1999 Poldark was placed in receivership and it appeared that an American buyer might obtain the assets as little local interest was shown in the site. After some protracted negotiations the site and its assets were acquired by the present owners, mining heritage enthusiasts, who formed Transcroft Limited for that purpose.
Poldark is within the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site and is developing itself as the Interpretation Centre for the Wendron Mining District. The site is considered to be a "jewel in the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site crown."
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