Book Direct with the Owner at Moonta Mines National Heritage Area with Accommodation Mermaid Beach in Moonta, for all your Attraction and travel needs.
The Moonta Mines National Heritage Area covers most of the former Moonta Mining Company lease. A tourist drive starting from the Moonta Town Hall leads through the Cornish cottages housing area and then passes the church, the Hughes Pump House ruins, Taylor’s shaft, the deepest shaft in the area and the ruins of the ore concentrating plant at Richman's. A walk to the lookouts on the top of the skimp heap gives an aerial view of the whole area.
Information signs enable visitors to relate existing ruins to former structures. The tour includes Ryan's shaft where copper was first discovered in 1861, ore sorting floors, the National Trust Miner's Cottage and Hancock's skimp heap and lookout. The mining area is amongst the most significant in Australia, illustrating the early mining and treatment of copper ores, mostly by Cornish immigrants. The transfer of technology and culture from Cornwall to Moonta makes it of such high significance and it is expected that World Heritage listing will be granted in time.
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