The Rockpool Stack and Red River Bridge Gwithian
by Terri Waters
Title
The Rockpool Stack and Red River Bridge Gwithian
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph
Description
After a walk along Gwithian beach at the northern end of St Ives Bay in Cornwall the weather was taking a turn for the worse. Leaving the sea behind me I took the opportunity of a gap in the walkers going over the bridge to capture the scene where the river joins the Atlantic Ocean.
The Rockpool Café is nestled in the dunes of Gwithian Towans, an area of low sand dunes bounded by Red River. The river gets its name and colour from the tin residues of the now redundant mines upstream towards Camborne and Redruth.
Next to the café is the chimney stack of the 20th century tin steam works and on the other side are the nature reserve ponds. It’s hard to believe now but Red River Valley Local Nature Reserve is located in what was one of Cornwall's most industrialised valleys during the peak mining period. Most of the activity associated with mineral extraction in the valley revolved around the recovery of tin that had been lost from mine dressing floors, and this form of tin streaming was carried out here right up to the 1960s.
Although the rocks are permanently stained a rich red, since the final demise of the tin industry in the late 1990s the river now runs clear.
Uploaded
February 3rd, 2018
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