Redruth

This area is at the centre of the Cornish mineral and mining industries - even influencing place names. Copper oxide gives the local river a reddish appearance, which is how Redruth came by its name; 'rhyd' means 'ford' in Cornish and 'ruth' means 'red'.

Minerals have been worked in the Redruth and Camborne area since the Bronze Age, by the Middle Ages tin mining was well established, copper mining became a significant industry in the 1700s and by the mid 1800s one third of the world's copper came from Cornwall.