St Newlyn East

St Newlyn East parish was named after St Newlina and the word ‘East’ added to distinguish the village from Newlyn near Penzance. The village was a flourishing mining area in the 19th century, – the imposing old engine house and chimney stack of East Wheal Rose mine can still be seen to the east and can be reached by taking a short journey on the Lappa Valley Steam Railway, one of the most popular attractions in the whole county. Lappa Valley Steam Railway is a narrow gauge railway that originally opened in 1849 as a mineral line from Newquay to East Wheal Rose and later became part of the Great Western Railway’s Newquay to Chacewater branch line, which was eventually closed in 1963. Eric Booth, the founder of Lappa Valley, reopened part of the line in 1974 and the centrepiece is a 15" inch gauge steam railway that runs through beautiful countryside from Benny Halt, but there are also two even smaller railways. Cornwall’s richest lead producing mine, East Wheal Rose, was the scene, in July 1846, of Cornwall’s worst mining disaster when 39 miners were drowned in a flash flood caused by an unexpected thunderstorm. The village’s cockpit (where cockfighting had been held for centuries) was restored as a memorial to the dead and, although the mine reopened a year after the accident, it closed for good in 1885.