Camborne is a town of the mining heartland, and its churchtown was first mentioned in 1181, long before the mines made it a byword for wealth and hard work. In Kernewek it is Kammbronn, the crooked hill. When the county talks about what it was in the industrial age, it is talking about Camborne and the ground around it.
Trevithick's hill
On Christmas Eve 1801, Richard Trevithick's Puffing Devil climbed Camborne Hill. It was the world's first self-propelled passenger-carrying vehicle, and the hill it climbed still carries the town above the valley.
The mines
The boom made Camborne and Redruth the place that records of the time described as the richest square mile in the old world. Dolcoath reached a depth of 3,500 feet, the deepest mine in the world for many years, and closed in 1921. South Crofty hung on until 1998, the last working tin mine in Europe, and its tin found one more life in the bronze medals of the 2012 London Olympics.
Works and weather
Holman Bros, founded in 1801, made mining machinery and then Sten guns in the Second World War before closing in 2003. In October 1873, miners' riots shook the town; no rioter was ever convicted.
Sources
Last checked: 2026-10-11