Summer Half-Term Day Trip #3 - Morwellham Quay

Our third half-term outing was close to home. Gwendolyn and I teamed up for a trip to Morwellham Quay, a 19^th-Century-era mining town that is being restored as part of the Cornwall and WestDevon Mining Landscape UNESCO World Heritage site. Morwellham Quay, which was once one of the busiest ports in Britain, exporting copper from the mines in this area, lies on the River Tamar in Devon, just across the river from Calstock, where I grab the bus home from work.

Morewellham Quay has been turned into a living history museum, and we’ve been wanted to visit it since we arrived but have been holding out for better weather. An added bonus for our visit is its proximity to us – it was only a 15-minute drive!

Perhaps the highlight of Morewellham Quay, and certainly our family favorite, was the chance that we had to take a train into an old mine. The trip lasts about an hour and works its way about a mile through the bedrock. Our train driver

gave us some good stories about life in the mines. We enjoyed travelling on the train.

Here is the mine shaft that we travelled through.

The staff at the museum are restoring the tracks that used to take the mined materials down to the River Tamar

in these old mining cars.

From here, the ore would travel to Wales, where there was coal to run the steam engines necessary for processing the ore. This was the reason that the port was so busy.

Much of Morewellham Quay celebrates life in Victorian times, although activity at the mine and in the village lasted into the mid-1900s. The girls had a lot of fun dressing up in Victorian costumes.

Even Christine and I got in on the action.

I think that Rebecca’s favorite activity was the Victorian school. We were able to sit through a 30-minute lesson covering typical Victorian themes, including reading, copper-plate writing, arithmetic, religion, drill, collage, and object. There was also a lot of discipline. Here, Gwendolyn volunteered to wear a dunce cap. Unfortunately we had yet to replace our broken camera. This was taken with the girls’ iPod and is a bit unclear, but you’ll get the idea.

Morwellham Quay was also the site of the 2010 BBC television show Edwardian Farm.

In this show, a couple of archaeologists and an historian moved to the village and farmed using Edwardian (1901-1910, named after the reign of King Edward VII) methods for a year. They had previously done a Victorian-era show, Victorian Farm, and this was a sequel. The historian, Ruth Goodman, lived in a house, now called Ruth's Cottage, in the village.

We were able to tour around the outside

and look at some of the rooms, including the bedroom

and a children’s bedroom. The girls were particularly impressed with the chamber pot beneath the bed.

The farm lies at the other end of the museum and it is where the two archaeologists, Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands, worked for a year. It is a pretty little farm. The work horses from the TV show still live there. Here, one sticks out its head from the barn.

The barns have been fixed up nicely,

and the farm is still actively raising sheep, cattle, pigs, and chickens

in addition to growing crops. We’re looking forward to watching Edwardian Farm on video when we return home in August.

Only one more half-term surprise trip to go!