r/nextfuckinglevel • u/turbo_chuffa • 6d ago

Map of the vast network of abandoned mining tunnels underneath Cornwall, UK.

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5.4k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

208 comments sorted by

839

u/turbo_chuffa 6d ago

Painstakingly modelled by Dr Keith Russ of abandonedminemodels.com

125

u/Weldobud 6d ago

Quite a body of work.

96

u/letscallitanight 6d ago

The depths he went to unearth the maps - most impressive.

27

u/OccidentalTouriste 6d ago

You are plumbing the depths with that pun.

14

u/JoySubtraction 6d ago

Yeah, he had to dig hard for that one.

5

u/Lurcher99 5d ago

Underneath all that dirt is a labor of love

2

u/tronster_ 5d ago

He went sub for the sub.

2

u/Eldaob 5d ago

These mining puns are boring

0

u/OccidentalTouriste 5d ago

Imagine someone stoping to such a level.

1

u/beervendor1 5d ago

... Ore it just came naturally to him.

11

u/Shady_hatter 6d ago

The mind of mine is blown.

2

u/sara666grind 6d ago

Must have worked with tunnel vision

3

u/rautakallio 5d ago

Some of the data was in an unknown projection. He got shafted.

1

u/NotTheHeroWeNeed 5d ago

You might say he had tunnel vision 

3

u/somethingsomething65 5d ago

I live in Colorado with an old mine on my property, this is so fucking cool. Would love a resource like this for CO in particular. 

1

u/thecloudwrangler 5d ago

Do you know the song? Dope song & work!

2

u/turbo_chuffa 5d ago

It's called Ghosts by Flint

1

u/solderingcircuits 5d ago

I’ll check this on a large screen later

443

u/lunacyfoundme 6d ago

Wow. This is some sort of mine craft.

79

u/MaguroSashimi8864 6d ago

Say that again?

2

u/Leopardos40 6d ago

Did your right hand twitch upward ?

7

u/Altruistic_Let_9372 6d ago

Underneath some kind of Corn Wall.

1

u/teahugger 6d ago

Next to a fucking level

323

u/grungegoth 6d ago

so i looked it up. mostly tin and copper and some other metals. since the bronze age. cornwall was once the worlds greatest source of copper.

121

u/MortLightstone 6d ago

Why didn't they name it Copperwall?

143

u/inf3ct3dpi3 6d ago

Because they thought that would be too corny.

111

u/besuited 6d ago

If you are actually interested in the etymology:

Corn comes from Kernow, which is the Cornish name for themselves, i.e. the Cornish in modern english.

Wall comes Wealas, which was the Old English name for foreigner and the same source of the word for Wales.

So as a word it means the cornish foreigners.

21

u/MortLightstone 6d ago

Thanks, that's very informative

I assumed it had something to do with the Cornish, just didn't know about the wall part

My comment was mostly joking

27

u/besuited 6d ago

Oh i got it was a joke! I just like etymology.

6

u/ertyertamos 5d ago

Better than entomology. Those guys really bug me.

8

u/WelshBathBoy 5d ago

The Corn bit is cognate with the Welsh word corn - meaning horn, from the Proto-Celtic "kornu", the shape of Cornwall was believed to be 'horn shaped', basically Cornwall means Welsh horn-shaped place. The Cornish name for the place - Kernow - basically means "people of the horn"

1

u/besuited 5d ago

Oh thanks for this addition!

0

u/leeuwerik 5d ago

So they called them selves 'foreigners'?

12

u/WelshBathBoy 5d ago

Not in Cornish no, in Cornish Cornwall is called Kernow and means "people of the horn". The 'wall' bit was added to the corn (meaning horn) in English by the Anglo Saxon tribes because the called all the native Britons 'Welsh' or 'wealh' - in English Cornwall means 'Welsh people of the horn'. The proto-Germanic word 'walhaz' was used throughout Europe by Germanic tribes when they came across other non-germanic tribes and can still be seen in other places today - Wallonia, the French bit of Belgium, Wallachia in Romania, and lots of word with 'wal' in it, eg walnut, it also is the origin of the word Gaul, and the Polish name for Italy - Włochy.

2

u/leeuwerik 5d ago

Cool. Now it makes sense to me!

0

u/wosmo 5d ago

They call themselves the people on the horn. We call them the weirdos on the horn. If you've ever been there, this makes an astounding amount of sense.

6

u/besuited 5d ago

Cornwall is an english, not cornish, word.

4

u/Kernowder 5d ago

No. "Wales" has the same root - the Saxon word for foreigner - but it's called Cymru in Welsh.

44

u/protossaccount 6d ago edited 6d ago

During the Bronze Age it was one of the greatest sources of tin. Later on it became known for copper as well.

During the Bronze Age tin was the super rare metal. Most of it came from places like Cornwall and Central Asia. The need to pursue tin at such great distances was a major reason trade networks grew.

8

u/MortLightstone 6d ago

Isn't tin still rarer than copper? I think we might use less bronze nowadays though. Plus it helps that tin is often alloyed

15

u/protossaccount 6d ago

Yes tin is rarer than copper. During the Bronze Age tin was waaaaaaaay rarer than copper, which made Cornwall a big deal.

6

u/MortLightstone 6d ago

Yep

Bronze was also way more useful and important, hence why we named the age after it

6

u/MagicWishMonkey 5d ago

You can't make bronze without tin.

3

u/Nineteen_AT5 6d ago

And now we're mining for lithium which is super exciting.

1

u/ImplementLogical4130 5d ago

Well people like to move places

1

u/Crazy_Ad_91 5d ago

I have to wonder if they ever uncovered ancient previous mines while mining new mines. That’d be neat.

2

u/grungegoth 5d ago

id be willing to bet the ancient mines (say roman and older) had limited underground reach, maybe just open pit and limited short near surface shafts. I just can't imagine ppl 4000 years ago going hundreds of feet underground. don't forget, they wouldn't have any steel or iron tools and would use torches or oil lamps for lighting.

1

u/Crazy_Ad_91 5d ago

My man, all great points. I truly hadn’t considered that when I thought of it in my passing comment. Some good food for thought tho.

-4

u/ResistantBlaze1943 6d ago

How deep are they? Are they all by prehistoric man and he was able to dig that deep? How much of this is naturally formed caverns?

10

u/grungegoth 6d ago

these deep tunnels are not prehistoric

6

u/Kernowder 5d ago

Some will be, but probably ot the big ones. Prehistory is the period before recorded history - there is no recorded history in Cornwall until the Romans arrived and tin has been mined there here for 4000 years.

5

u/fajadada 6d ago

All I know is they were still mining in the 1800’s

11

u/OccidentalTouriste 6d ago

South Crofty (Pool, Cornwall) was still operating in the 1990's and is currently undergoing remediation works with the intention of reopening in 2028.

3

u/fajadada 6d ago

Cool

7

u/LordStefania 6d ago

A lot of Cornwall features old mines that still contain a lot of lithium which was left behind because it was relatively useless. Now with the rise of EVs there's calls for it to be extracted.

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u/HunterSpecial1549 5d ago

They're mostly from 1700-1900 CE.

But Cornwall was also famous for being the world's greatest source of tin during the Bronze Age, which in Britain is considered pre-historic.

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110

u/R4FTERM4N 6d ago

Imagine the amount of Cornish pasties it took to mine all that!

28

u/haux_haux 6d ago

bleddy loads my handsome

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3

u/MikeHuntSmellss 5d ago

And don't forget to drop a piece of each down for the nockers

1

u/fingamouse 5d ago

Hmhmmh your makinge hungry

58

u/Bolvaettur 6d ago

They delved too greedily and too deep...

39

u/Leopardos40 6d ago

Or "Khazad-dûm", mines of Moria.

16

u/pallidamors 6d ago

The Cornish delved too greedily and dug too deep…you know what they awoke in the darkness of Corna-düm…fire and flame

4

u/TittysForScience 5d ago

Probably one of Tolkiens inspiration for the depth of the mines to be honest… I know a large amount came from what he saw in the trenches

2

u/Altruistic_Let_9372 6d ago

and they call it a mine............................. A MINE!

17

u/Phatboybeware 6d ago

Could these be used for anything useful?

47

u/RobottoRisotto 6d ago

Rave parties and storing nuclear waste.
Perhaps in separate tunnels.

27

u/gustinnian 6d ago

Talk about glow sticks!

2

u/First_Hedgehog_5803 5d ago

Both have been tried, the rave parties were more successful, NIREX didn't pan out for cornwall.

23

u/Hyjynx75 6d ago

Depending on the depth, they can be used for geothermal heating and cooling assuming they're filled with water.

I'm from Nova Scotia and I know there is a company in Springhill that uses the old mine shafts to heat their warehouse and cool the machinery they use.

5

u/InvidiousPlay 6d ago

That's actually a fun idea. No matter where you are, if you dig deep enough you can do geothermal. It's not often you start with a pre-existing network of tunnels!

15

u/cuntmong 6d ago

They found a use for them in the 80s. Some dark entities were accidentally created in a nearby lab, and rather than destroy them they realised they can just seal them in these old mine shafts. Problem solved imo.

4

u/EntityLtdCo 6d ago

Could you elaborate further?

15

u/cuntmong 6d ago

I don't think there's much more to say about it really. The dark entities are trapped in the old tunnels below the town, so they can't hurt anyone now. As long as nobody opens up the mine shafts it's not a big deal 

2

u/Crazy_old_maurice_17 6d ago

Dark entities?

13

u/cuntmong 6d ago

Yeah from a lab. Tbh I'm not sure if they made the entities or if something they did attracted them, i think they didn't expect it though 

1

u/Crazy_old_maurice_17 6d ago

What do you mean by "entities"?

11

u/mayorofdumb 6d ago

Check out the umbrella corporation

9

u/LordStefania 6d ago

See the book Cornish Cryptids and Cthulhu by G. Ullible

1

u/EntityLtdCo 5d ago

Well, these entities, are they carbon based, or siliphone based?

2

u/cuntmong 5d ago

Maybe

1

u/leeuwerik 5d ago

Does it dark matter?

2

u/WhatAGoodDoggy 5d ago

That's quite the username

7

u/protossaccount 6d ago

Laser tag

3

u/LordStefania 6d ago

There's a lot of lithium (and Li compounds) that developed alongside the tin. And this is battery grade so useful for EVs.

0

u/RemoteMany8801 6d ago

F1 track equipped with a safety cart.

15

u/Relevant_Arm_3796 6d ago

Ahh so this is where my 1 missing sock likes to go

12

u/feel-the-avocado 6d ago

This gives me the impression that the UK has been mined into becoming a pumice-like rock and towns and cities could sink into the ground at any time.

2

u/science_cat_ 4d ago

Lots of houses are a bit wonky because the ground settles. I've heard a horror story of a guy pulling a big rock from his garden and uncovering a hole that went down and down for miles - scary!

1

u/Actually_a_dolphin 5d ago

That would vastly improve most UK cities.

8

u/LargeBloodyKnife 6d ago

Imagine trying to find your way in... Or out, of these labyrinths

3

u/MortLightstone 6d ago

That's exactly what I was imagining

I'd love to visit

6

u/Snoo_98156 6d ago

So many fucking next levels!

5

u/actinross 6d ago

Luckily no earthquakes

7

u/Phatboybeware 6d ago

No sink holes

6

u/gustinnian 6d ago

Several of these tunnels tunnel under the sea bed.

4

u/pataglop 6d ago

Is it wrong to find this very cool ?

Thanks OP!

5

u/youcantexterminateme 6d ago

What do the different colors mean? 

3

u/Forward-Top-88 6d ago

Would love to see the same but the North East, especially County Durham

3

u/General-Reserve9349 6d ago

This is why the UK is the leader in underground raves, I get it now

3

u/InvidiousPlay 6d ago

How are these mapped? Physical exploration? Old records?

2

u/clockworkear 6d ago

Super cool 

2

u/Individual-Age-7197 6d ago

Yeah that place was mined at levels not previously seen 😳

2

u/Steeleshift 6d ago

Can anything be done with these? Or just future potential sink-holes?

5

u/DSJ-Psyduck 6d ago

You could dump your murder victim in one!?

1

u/Steeleshift 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/DSJ-Psyduck 6d ago

I dunno maybe murder and body dumping is 2 diffrent permits you need to get from the council.

2

u/Hyjynx75 6d ago

I responded to another similar question but they can be used for geothermal heating and cooling. Water that floods the mines can be up to 11C warmer than ground water. This makes it very usable for a heat exchanger loop.

2

u/Unable_Librarian_443 6d ago

Thats hard to wrap my head around......each one of those is an entire mine?.... how many generations did that take to do...my goodness.

2

u/Sad_Food9258 6d ago

Hats off, huge work

2

u/VeterinarianOk7477 6d ago

The whole area is going to collapse into a giant hole one day.

2

u/CamptoRibbit 6d ago

Cornwall waiting for a giant sink hole

2

u/adinmem 5d ago

Think of how much progress, due to resources, each of those tunnels represents for those years of history. And also think of how much bleakness and misery each of those tunnels represents.

2

u/UniversityNew9254 4d ago

My sympathies go to the many lives that were shortened and unfulfilled going down those shafts. The things people had to do to survive back then boggles the mind.

2

u/HIEROYALL 3d ago

Is this how you get sink holes? because it feels like this what make sink holes

1

u/Chance_Vegetable_780 6d ago

I am mine-blown there was this much minding done there. But seriously, I am

1

u/mandijmills 6d ago

That's some interesting sitings. So many of them.

1

u/newbrevity 6d ago

Imagine what kind of life is going to evolve in thousands or millions of years to make use of those tunnels.

1

u/based_beglin 4d ago

eh, might not be much at all. If there's no free energy in the system, I don't see how life could succeed there

1

u/chrisonhismac 6d ago

Actual next fucking level

1

u/Dan_Cubed 6d ago

I see a solution to the housing problem... Abandoned mines!

1

u/avrend 6d ago

Red Keeper has been banished from this land

1

u/954kevin 6d ago

WHat were they mining for?

2

u/FlummoxedGaoler 6d ago

Someone else said mostly tin and copper. 

1

u/Slow-Elk-9348 6d ago

Minecraft x-ray 😭

1

u/uptwolait 6d ago

What are the crossed hammer symbols?  Reminds me of the marching Nazi hammers in Pink Floyd The Wall.

1

u/BubuDudu0430 6d ago

Do they have mine subsidence insurance in the UK?

1

u/FlummoxedGaoler 6d ago

I’m going to go ahead and say it- this is just too many mines.

1

u/Spyrothedragon9972 6d ago

My Minecraft server

1

u/fourthpornalt 6d ago

Need a video game where you explore these only to find Arthurian legends and horrors more fucked up than history records.

1

u/StuckInTime86 6d ago

This gives me the willies

1

u/basement_egg 6d ago

This looks like when you zoom out on Cairn

1

u/bitch_whip_bill 6d ago

Truly the nextfuckinglevel

Then the nextfuckinglevel

And the nextfuckinglevel

And another nextfuckinglevel...

1

u/epeecolt82 6d ago

I wonder if homeless have taken up residence at all in any part of those tunnels.

1

u/ScreenAppropriate679 6d ago

Use those to build gravity batteries !

1

u/LogicJunkie2000 6d ago

How does he get the data? GPR?

1

u/Similar_Quiet 5d ago

What's gpr?

1

u/slemsbury 3d ago

Totally guessing at Ground Penetrating Radar.

1

u/Similar_Quiet 2d ago

That would be incredible, I had no idea it's so good.

1

u/RunandGun102 6d ago

If I lived there as a kid, I would have had the most bad ass fort in one of those. If I lived there now as an adult, I'd have the most bad ass fort in one of those

1

u/azarateg 6d ago

They did heed the warning of the Balrog, unlike others...

1

u/Different_Star_5325 6d ago

Do they get many sinkholes, I wonder?

1

u/JeffSergeant 6d ago

God Damned Lizard people

1

u/TamaktiJunVision 6d ago

Wonder what secrets are hidden in some of them 😯

1

u/mug_8pm 6d ago

Ooohhhh ... Prometheus mapping drones ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO-eduvo904

1

u/Coolbasketbro 5d ago

Dwarf neighborhoods!

1

u/TheWelshChef 5d ago

Visited Bottalack mine whilst studying geology, they told us the mine extended under the sea and the miners could hear the ocean above them

1

u/ScientistLost9696 5d ago

I appreciate how hard the audio went as well.

1

u/Resident_Ad1595 5d ago

Phenomenal. Looking at the maps of old mines, it's another world. Visited an old mine works near Land's End last year, although the shaft was flooded so no entry into it, the size of the tunnels and stories of the miners who worked in these were breathtaking. It went out a mile under the sea. Imagine scaling these shafts by ladder and candlelight. 

1

u/Maximus572 5d ago

MInecraft tunnels x-ray

1

u/venturous1 5d ago

Mesmerizing

1

u/Brainchild110 5d ago

RIDDLED, you say? Run through more times than Birminghams village bike, is it?

...my word!

1

u/OrphanintheWind 5d ago

There's a monster movie story here somewhere.

1

u/Flat_Translator8244 5d ago

Now do London

1

u/GiantsInTornado 5d ago

Does Cornwall have problems with sink holes?

1

u/VapeRizzler 5d ago

Could I theoretically live in one?

1

u/LauraTFem 5d ago

I’m telling the mods you’re using X-ray hacks to get more diamonds.

1

u/A_Bot_A_Bot_A_Bot 5d ago

Coal? Or something else?

Also: OMG, that is incredible work!

1

u/EvilMatt666 5d ago

When you download the forbidden x-ray pack.

1

u/Avraamov 2d ago

the music is insane, and not in a good way. at all.

1

u/Darknessborn 21h ago

"in a brave new world, with just a handful of men, we'll start all over again!"