Cornish Engine Houses

Scattered across Cornwall’s mining landscape, they still stand today. The ruins of the engine houses that once kept the region’s tin and copper mines running. I photographed them in their surroundings. On sheer cliffs, on high moorland, among pastures and spoil heaps.

Tin and copper mining have a long tradition in Cornwall and neighbouring Devon, reaching back to the Bronze Age. During England’s industrialisation in the 19th century, the region’s development was exemplary. Within a few years, the landscape changed dramatically. Since 2006, the “Cornish and West Devon Mining Landscape” has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ruined engine houses remain its most visible testimony.

The engine houses resemble each other in their architecture: a rectangular plan, built from the surrounding stone, a tall chimney, a front wall thicker than the side walls. Inside stood the steam engine. It kept the mines – some of which extended below sea level – free of water, hauled equipment down into the shafts, or drove iron stamps that crushed the ore. This massive, technically necessary construction is the reason so many engine houses have survived to this day.

The work was made in 1996/1997, between the two series on German bedrooms and the “British Abbeys”. It was the first series in which I brought the landscape itself into the lighting concept. That changed a good deal. The distances grew larger, the light sources different, the walks longer. Wind and weather became factors I had to reckon with. All the images were taken with a Hasselblad 500C and a single lens: the 80mm Tessar.

Some images have a green or orange sky. This is owed to the surrounding orange street lamps: over a long exposure, the sky first turns green, then orange.

Cornwall has never let go of me – even though the one-dimensional Rosamunde Pilcher views of the region give an inadequate picture. Cornwall is, and remains, a rugged and captivating landscape.