Students hardwork is celebrated

Last week over 300 young people gathered to celebrate this years Heartlands Primary School Project, and to showcase their hard work.

This years project was the third year that Pool Business and Enterprise College and Heartlands worked together to host the project to 6 local primary schools. Treloweth, St Johns, Rosemellin, Portreath, Illogan and Roskear all focused on the interpretation centre that will be housed in the Robinson's Shaft buildings, which are at the hub of the Heartlands site. Year five and six students from each school looked at creating their own child-friendly visitor guides for the museum that will be built at Heartlands. Students visited several mining sites in Cornwall, such as Geevor and Cornish Mines and Engines in Pool, to inspire their project work. All six schools also visited the Heartlands site to take a look at what it looks like prior to construction work commencing.

The imaginations of the students and teachers ran wild, with replica model engine houses being built, merchandise such as bookmarks, badges and colourful fridge magnets produced that could be sold in the gift shop at Heartlands, miners helmets were made and also wonderful t-shirts, as well as the very impressive visitor guides, which were filled with interesting facts, puzzles, maps and important information about Robinson's Shaft.

New Heartlands leaflet arrives!

If you would like some copies of our new leaflet posted to you please contact 01209 722323.

Students take their Lost Words to the beach

The hugely successful Lost Words Found Objects arts project, which has been a partnership between Heartlands, artist Ben Cook and students from Pool Business and Enterprise College, is coming to a finale.

Lost Words Found Objects is a project looking at the Cornish language and exploring forgotten words in the Cornish vocabulary. Find out what happened when year 8 students from Pool School took their Lost Words to Gwithian Beach, at their blog here.

Sneak preview inside Heartlands community hall

Exciting new images have been produced to give an impression of what the inside of the community hall at Heartlands will look like.

The multi-use hall is located inside Heartlands' community building, called the Chy an Bobel. The hall will be able to accommodate conferences and meetings of up to 200 people, the built in sprung floor will benefit dance groups who wish to practise and perform. The large community hall can be used for a diverse range of uses within a unique setting, that is Heartlands.

The Chy an Bobel will also be home to a Children's Centre, apartments, smaller meetings rooms and an atrium area.

Latest developments from site

The focus during the last month at Heartlands has been to conserve the mine buildings within the Robinsons Shaft complex. The Carpenters Shed (top picture) which will be restored and become the restaurant and cafe, has undergone works to protect the existing structure until further works begin later this year.

The winding house has also had protective works undertaken, with scaffolding being erected and a temporary roof built to ensure the winding gear inside the building is protected until major works begin.
The winding house and engine house, above, will become part of the exhibition space at Heartlands. The mine buildings are Grade II* listed and will be fully restored with the machinery they contain. The buildings will interpret Robinsons Shaft's status as a Gateway site to the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site and will contain free to enter exhibitions which will tell the story of Cornish Mining and Miners. The exhibitions will focus on the people who contributed to mining history - miners themselves, engineers, inventors, builders, landowners and merchants, using interactive audio and visual techniques. Their content will be derived from oral histories of ex-miners and their families and the local community of Pool.

Beam engine moves again after 55 years!

Opening up the beam engine

The beam engine which sits within the Robinsons Shaft complex at the centre of Heartlands returned to motion last week after 55 years.

Robinsons Engine House at Heartlands.

Engineers have been exploring the possibilities of how we can power up the Robinsons pumping engine for when Heartlands opens. The Robinsons beam engine was used to continuously pump water from the mine from 1906 until 1955. Electric pumps were used at Robinsons after this time due to the cost of maintaining the Cornish pumping engines.

An engineer gets inside the beam engine to inspect its condition.

International Council on Mining and Metals visits Heartlands

Heartlands was visited by the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) to show how a cultural regeneration project is developing in Cornwall.

ICMM, who are the industry's leadership association in mining and sustainable development visited Heartlands as part of a trip hosted by the Eden Project.

The delegation was made up of 20 people with a wide and diverse background and expertise related to international mining, from high level mining executives of some of the biggest mining companies in the world to staff based in London offices.