Portreath Harbour

Constructing the harbour at Portreath may have began in 1760 and it was described in 1827 as perhaps Cornwall's most important port; it has strong links with south Wales where coal was procured and Cornish copper smelted. Hundreds of local men left here on the coal ships for south Wales on their way via copper ore barques to work as miners in Cuba in the 1830s and 40s.

The Portreath Tramroad (1809) and the Portreath branch of the Hayle Railway (1838) linked the mines in the Camborne / Redruth and Gwennap Mining Districts with the port. The Hayle railway is marked by a major piece of railway engineering, the Portreath Incline.
 

The harbour was too exposed to be safely used in bad weather and for this reason an inner basin was added in 1846, but it still remained dangerous to enter. An outer basin was added in 1880.

The decline in the amount of copper ore being raised inland meant that the port was began to diversify and from the 1850s to the 1920s: shipbuilding flourished in the 1860s and 70s, as did seine fishing until the disappearance of the pilchard shoals in the twentieth century. Nonetheless, the fleet of small steam colliers or 'cawl' boats owned by the Baines family plied the South Wales route until early in the twentieth century.

Click here to find out more about Portreath's industrial past.