The UK’s largest ever puppet will walk from Tavistock along the entire length of the West Devon and Cornish Mining World Heritage Site later this year as part of an ambitious five-month cultural celebration.

In July 2006, the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of this remarkable achievement in 2016, the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Partnership has commissioned an exciting summer-long set of inspirational events and experiential happenings entitled Tinth.

Every one of the ten areas of the UK’s largest World Heritage Site will host events that focus on West Devon and Cornwall’s world-changing industrial innovations.

The key commission sees the creation of the Man Engine, a 12-metre high steam-powered giant who will quite literally stride the length of the mining landscape over the course of two weeks. 

The brainchild of Will Coleman of Cornwall’s Golden Tree Productions, the towering cast-iron puppet is part man, part machine. He will have a real fire in his belly, a beating beam-engine in his heart and the entire Industrial Revolution in his head.

The largest puppet ever made in Britain, the Man Engine will be accompanied by more than a dozen ‘miners’ and ‘bal-maidens’ who will animate the steam-powered giant, heaving on coal, ensuring that flames roar, and steam belches.

The colossal Man Engine will make his journey, step-by-step, from Tavistock to Land’s End, literally walking and crawling through each one of the ten World Heritage Site mining areas. The puppet is setting off from Tavistock on July 25.

At each of these key mining locations, the Man Engine and his cavalcade will be greeted by a set of pre-planned ceremonies, events and locally-flavoured celebrations. Ancient mining chimney stacks will be smoking once again, traction engines will be in full steam, choirs will be in full voice and brass bands, schoolchildren, ‘bal maidens’ and ‘miners’ will all be dressed in 1800s costumes, as they observe and experience their own area’s history and significance within the World Heritage Site.

Another commission, Picturing The Mines, will see nationally renowned print makers and artists, Jesse Leroy Smith and Bernard Irwin, working with local communities in each of the ten areas to find new ways of quite literally picturing the mining heritage. 

The creative collaboration will result in ten powerfully evocative etchings of the area’s mining landscapes. Printed from copper plates, a set of limited edition prints will be sent across the region and internationally as a lasting record of the area’s mining heritage.  

Through Picturing the Mines, Jesse and Bernard will also create dynamic visual maps of the mining landscape and heritage in public events in each of the ten heritage site areas.

Ideas from these sessions will inspire a treasure trove of images from which they will select ten to be made into powerful copper etchings. The final works will be presented as a permanent archive to the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site in two hand-made boxes embellished with mouldings cast in Cornish tin.

A host of recognised mining world heritage locations and partners are also set to announce Tinth events and happenings in the coming months.  

Cornish Mining World Heritage Site co-ordinator Deborah Boden, said: ‘The mining communities of Cornwall and West Devon were industrial pioneers, inventing new technologies and techniques for winning vital metals from deep, hard rock, and becoming internationally recognised for their skill as a result.

‘World Heritage Site status acknowledges that their achievements shaped not only this place, but all our lives and our world today. We developed the concept of a “Tinth” anniversary to celebrate ten years as a World Heritage Site with the communities that live in and care for the site today. We put a call out to the creative sector in Cornwall and Devon to bring forward ideas to mark this milestone, and were overwhelmed with the response.

‘The quality and inventiveness of the ideas put forward by our cultural partners is a fitting tribute to our ancestors’ legacy. The Tinth events programme will enable people to see, learn and experience the meaning of the World Heritage Site, and what lies behind it all. The contributing events and happenings will bring to life the stories and the experiences behind all that happened here, in a sense reclaiming the ground and highlighting the global importance of the area’s mining.’

The Cornish Mining World Heritage Site is made up of ten separate areas within Cornwall and West Devon, all former mineral mining districts during 1700 to 1914 - the industry’s period of greatest international impact. The landscape comprises a combination of industrial, public and domestic buildings and related structures and landforms resulting from the development of innovative deep mining technology. Equally important to the designation is the distinctive mining culture that created this amazing landscape and which was subsequently exported across the world.

Cllr Julian German, chairman of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Partnership said: ‘Tinth will bring something for everyone — schoolchildren, the general public, the wider community, visitors to the World Heritage Site and also to the Cornish mining diaspora across the globe. Our Cornish mining ancestors were international entrepreneurs, who propelled mining into a new industrial era, on a worldwide scale.

‘It wasn’t an easy journey for anyone then, and in many ways, it is a difficult history. However, this year, Tinth will bring alive the past, showing its meaning and significance in the present – and for the future.

‘Special projects like the towering Man Engine, Picturing The Mines and the trench show at Levant Mine show we still share this same gritty ambition and ingenuity with our ancestors.

‘Tinth will elevate Cornish mining, highlighting its distinctiveness and importance through scale, rich stories and spectacle. We will literally be taking people right across the peninsula on a series of adventures and experiences that help them to learn, understand and ultimately feel great about their own and their community’s heritage.’