Redruth is one of the two towns at the heart of the old mining country, and the boom in copper ore turned a market town into an industrial one. In Kernewek it is Resrudh, the red ford. The town's shape, its chapels and its terraces were set by the mines, and its story is the story of Cornish mining at its height and after.
Inventors and exchanges
William Murdoch lived in the town from 1782 to 1798, in the first house in the world lit by gas, and the electric telegraph reached Redruth in 1863. The Mining Exchange was built in 1880 so that share brokers could trade the mines' stock in the open, and it stands as a monument to a time when the town's business was measured in shafts and stamps.
After the mines
South Crofty at Pool, the last fully operational mine, closed in March 1998, and the Tin Miner statue was raised in 2008 to mark what the town had been. Kresen Kernow, on the former Redruth Brewery site, now holds the county's archives, which feels right: the town that dug the records out of the ground keeps them safe.
Sources
Last checked: 2026-10-11