Friday 20th September 2024
Again we awoke to sunshine beating down on us, lucky or what? Today we are heading to East Pool Mine, a museum near Redruth but en-route we’ll visit Basset Monument, a world heritage site monument but no hurry.
After a leisurely breakfast we headed out, first stop Basset Monument, about half ‘n hour away but only 9-miles, Cornish lanes!!!
About a couple of miles away we spotted the monument high on a hill overlooking Cornwall, but the last mile was interesting; the narrow lane went one further, no tarmac just a hardcore surface with numerous potholes, naturally we questioned if we were on the right route, but carried on remembering the saying, “always trust your instruments”.
Finally arrived and first impression: my-my it is a big monument on top of a Carn Brea (hill) giving a 360 degree view, Overlooking both Camborne and Redruth and much of Cornwall reaching up to 738 feet above sea level. The Basset Monument was constructed in 1836 in memory of Francis Bassett, Lord de Dunstaville. The interior of the monument can be accessed by a gate, but locked!! The inside is hollow with a staircase leading up to a viewing platform (allegedly) I didn’t see the stairs as there is no lighting so maybe a torch is needed!!!!
The Bassetts where the most important mining family in the area and had lived in Tehidy for over 700 years. Francis Bassett was however the first to be elevated to the nobility due to his efforts to raise an army of miners to defend the port of Plymouth from the combined Spanish and French fleets. Another legacy of the Bassett family is Carn Brea Castle, situated the other side of Carn Brea, all within walking distance of the car “ha-ha” park. It is thought that it started out as an Elizabethan hunting lodge though the building in its current form is a Victorian folly, and now it is a restaurant. We walked up to look and hopefully have a coffee but unfortunately it was all closed up until 1830hrs.
We had a good nose around and the dogs had a good time climbing the big boulders that were scattered around before heading to East Pool Mine, situated at the back of Morrisons Supermarket, about 10-minutes away. It’s strange, everything is fairly close in mileage terms, but not in time, every trip seems to take “for-ages”.
After weaving our way around Morrisons carpark, there was the entrance to the mine, all locked up!!! At this point I headed back into the store for personal issues whilst Christine looked up the opening times, before joining me in the cafe for a bacon bap, as it was lunch time now.
The mine only opens by appointment, presumably for a party and a guided tour, so no visit today🥵🥵
We headed back to camp but decided to stop at one of the coves and let the dogs fly about the beach. Unfortunately each cove we passed was teaming and all the car parks were full so we went back to base for an early dinner. Later we headed back out to Weal Coates where the dogs and us had fond farewell walk, home tomorrow😩😩
Saturday 21st September 2024
My my how the weather has changed, dull very, very grey skies and lots of rain, thank goodness we cleared the site last night; the skies are full of it!!!
No stopping in this miserable weather on the way home today but strangely when we got back to our neck of the woods, it had stopped and everywhere had brightened up, so much so we could empty Rosie in the dry; bonus, and return her to storage