My Visit to Geevor Tin Mine
by Lily, age 8
“On Tuesday I visited Geevor Tin Mine with my class 3K and my teacher Mrs Kyte. It was a damp, rainy day but luckily by the time we arrived at our destination the rain had cleared a little and we didn’t get too wet.
I had the most wonderful day. I learnt so much about the history of mining, different rock types and how tin is removed from stone. I really liked looking at all the different machines. They were massive! My favourite was the shaking table. Stone sand was poured on to it and then water was added. The table shook and then the stone rolled down it whereas the tin got stuck in the grooves. It was really interesting.
We panned for little gem stones in sand. I collected a bag a beautiful stones which I got to take home. It was lots of fun although I did get a bit wet!
My favourite part of the whole day was going down in to the actual mine. It was really dark and spooky but Clint who showed us around said that actually it would have been much darker than that years ago when the miners only used candles to light their way. I would have been super scared. I fit really easily into the tunnels but Mr Middleton had to keep ducking down and Mrs Kyte accidentally bumped her head. Luckily we were all wearing helmets. The kids wore red helmets and the adults had yellow helmets. Real miners would have had head lamps on the their helmets.
I had a go at hand drilling. It was so hard. I don’t think I made the hole any bigger in the rock. I also tried crushing the stone in to sand with a big hammer. This was a bit easier but still very tiring. Clint said that girls would have been used to sort the stones when they brought up from the mine and he showed us how to do it. He said girls wouldn’t have gone down in to the mine. That didn’t sound very fair to me.
I would love to visit Geevor Tin Mine again and maybe take my parents to show them everything I learned.”