National Trust - Botallack

The Cornish tin mines at Botallack are a stark reminder of how brutal mining life was. You're standing on a clifftop near Penzance looking down at engine houses that jut out from the rock face itself - some of them literally hanging over the sea. It's genuinely unnerving, the kind of place that makes you grateful for modern health and safety regulations.

What you're looking at are the remains of 19th-century tin and copper mining operations. The National Trust owns the site, and you can walk the coastal path, peer into the old workings, and read the interpretive boards that explain how miners would abseil down into shafts that went far beneath the ocean floor. Children find it fascinating in a morbid sort of way - there's something compelling about standing above an underwater mine shaft. Adults will get far more from the industrial heritage angle, especially if you spend time actually reading the history.

It's free to visit and you can spend anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours depending on how much you want to explore. The clifftop walk is stunning regardless, but the real draw is understanding how different Cornish life looked a couple of centuries ago. There's no visitor centre or facilities on site, so come prepared.

If you're camping at Roselands or Lands End, Botallack sits nicely on a coastal walk route between Penzance and the cliffs further west. Combine it with other National Trust properties in the area rather than making it a standalone trip.