History of Mineshop

Mineshop was named in two parts, ‘Mine’ after the working Lead and Zinc Mine, which was located in the valley and ‘Shop’ after The Blacksmith’s Shop now known as The Old Smithy. The Mine closed down in the early forties and the Blacksmiths Shop sometime in the Fifties.
We moved to Mineshop in 1966 and converted / Built the Cottages soon after, before this the Lee family owned the Valley and ran a Market Garden, growing Potatoes, Vegetables, Daffodils, Strawberries etc, on the whole of the South facing side of the Valley, all this was before the days of large Farm Machinery and was done solely by hand!!!

History of St. Gennys (Cornish: Sen Gwynnys)

St. Gennys parish consits of 6065 acres of land, 2 acres of water and 320 acres of foreshore.  The name comes from St. Genesius, the patron saint of the local church, situated at Churchtown on top of the 400ft cliffs overlooking Bude Bay.  The first reference of st. Gennys is in the Doomsday Book, however there is evidence of human occupation dating back to prehistoric times.  

Agriculture has always been a key industry in St. Gennys, but slate quarrying, mining and trade also used to be thrieving industries in the area.  In its hey-day there were blacksmiths at Mineshop, Churchtown, Cleave, Coxford, Wainhouse, Tresparrett Post, Pencuke and Trevigue.  Today there aren't any!      

History of Crackington Haven

'Crackington' is a hybrid of Cornish and English 'Crack' means sandstone in Cornish and 'mutha tun' means river mouth farm in English.  Located on the 600 mile South West Coast Path, Crackington is situated at the mouth of the picturesque valley which leads to Mineshop.  It is of great geological importance with it's carvoniferous rocks, the type has even been given the game 'the Crackington Formation', for this reason the area has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), as well as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Crackington Haven was mainly used for the Quarrying of Slate, large vessels would come in and Beach themselves at Mid tide, unload their cargo of limestone & Coal, load up with Slate taken from the cliffs and on the next High tide sail away. In the 19th Century plans were drawn up to build a harbour at Crackington, luckily these plans were abandoned leaving its unspoilt beauty relatively unchanged for centuries.

Wrecks are said to have supplied much of the early building materials in Crackington.  The rocky headlands claimed many boats all along the coast.  Walk along Tremoutha beach and you may stumbel across the last remaining parts of the WW2 S89 German E boat which washed up there on 5th October 1946.

Crackington, along with Boscastle, suffered a great deal of damage in the flood of 16th August 2004.  The shops, cafes and homes were flooded, cars washed out to sea, and the bridge suffered structural damage.  Crackington has never seen anything like it before.  Seeing the peaceful village now, it is hard to beleive that anything ever happened!