Portreath from Tregea Hill

Image: © Simon Huguet Taken: 11 Aug 2008

Portreath has an unusual settlement pattern which reflects its industrial heritage. The old settlement clusters along the edge of the lower slopes of the surrounding hills and straggles inland from the harbour up what is now the B3300. Modern houses now occupy the central level area to the south of the harbour that once was one of the busiest industrial ports in Cornwall. From about 1760 the harbour developed to export Cornish copper and tin to Wales to be smelted, bringing back coal to power the steam engines that pumped the Cornish mines. In the C19th the central area of this picture held coal wharves, ore hutches and kilns, a small boat-building yard and a 'fish palace' where herring and pilchard were cured and packed for export to the Mediterranean. As these industries declined in the years before the Great War tourism became more important and the harbour finally ceased to trade commercially in 1960. The mining and related industrial villages in this part of Cornwall [St Day, Troon, Brea, Carharrack and Carnkie]are currently seeking recogniton as an Industrial Heritage site.

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