Report - Cligga Head Tin Mine, Perranporth, Cornwall, Jan 2012

djflava · Jan 22, 2012

Cligga Wolfram & Tin Mine lies on the cliff tops about one and a quarter miles southwest of Perranporth on the North Cornish coast. The granite pegmatite cliffs have been altered to greisen and exhibit jointing and veining. The veins often filled with cassiterite (tin oxide), wolframite, mispickel (arsenical pyrite) and the copper/iron suphides, chalcopyrite and bornite. Silver ore has also been reported here.
There is one shaft on the sett called Contact Shaft and two adits, one at beach level called Beach Adit, the other atop the cliffs and unsurprisingly called Cliff Adit. The mine worked in the early part of the twentieth century although 'Old Men's Workings' from the past are quite visible as you approach the area. Mining restarted in 1938 after a period of closure prior to the mine being taken over by the 'Rhodesian Mines Trust Limited in 1939'.
Trials were carried out around this time to see if it was more feasible to work the stockwork as an open cast pit rather than an underground mine, but this came to nothing. There is surprisingly little information on Cligga although there are production records showing that between 1940 and 1944, 300 tons of wolfram and 200 tons of black tin were raised and sold.