Balwest (Cornish: Bal West, meaning Western mine) is a hamlet in the civil parish of Germoe in west Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. The hamlet is on the southern edge of a former mining area, part of a geological formation known as the Tregonning-Godolphin Granite (one of five granite batholiths in Cornwall) which was formerly an important source of tin and copper ore (see also Geology of Cornwall).
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333 m
Boscreege is a small village in the civil parish of Germoe in west Cornwall, in England, United Kingdom.
The village is on the southern edge of a former mining area, part of a geological formation known as the Tregonning-Godolphin Granite which was formerly an important source of tin and copper ore.
The name Boscreege is an anglicisation of the Cornish language Boskrug, which contains the words bos 'dwelling' and krug 'barrow, mound'.
787 m
Great Work Mine was a Cornish mine between Godolphin hill and Tregonning Hill and is in the hamlet of Great Work on Bal Lane. Great Work is notable for its unusual chimney stack with the upper brick-work in two stages. The remaining ruin of the mine sits 400 ft above sea level, and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
The site is owned by the National Trust and forms part of the Godolphin Estate along with Godolphin House.
789 m
Tregonning Hill is the westerly of two granite hills overlooking Mount's Bay in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, the other being Godolphin Hill. They are approximately 6 kilometres west of the town of Helston. The Plymouth chemist William Cookworthy mixed china stone with kaolin, mined from the hill to make Plymouth porcelain in 1768; which was the first time hard-paste porcelain was made in Britain. Part of the hill is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and at the date of notification was the only known site of western rustwort in Great Britain.
In July 2023 the hill was listed by Estate Agents for £150,000 and bought by the Cornwall Heritage Trust in November.
1.2 km
Germoe is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Germoe village, the parish's main settlement and church town, is about five miles west of Helston and seven miles east of Penzance. The A394 Penzance to Helston road runs along the southern border of the parish. Other settlements in the parish include Balwest, Boscreege and Tresowes Green.
The parish is named after Saint Germocus, one of the companions of Saint Breage. According to legend Germoc was a king in Ireland whose feast day is 6 May.
Historically, the largest landowners in the parish were the Godolphin family.
Germoe parish is bounded to the north, east and south by Breage parish and to the west by St Hilary parish. The population was 508 in the 2001 census. This had increased to 549 at the 2011 census. The parish is now rural in character but was once associated with the Cornish mining industry; to the north it borders the geological formation known as the Tregonning-Godolphin Granite and the area was formerly an important source of tin and copper ore. Tregonning Hill is the site of the Germoe first and second war memorial.
1.5 km
Ashton is a village in the civil parish of Breage, west Cornwall, England, UK at OS grid ref SW604286. It is on the A394 Penzance – Helston road one mile north-east of Praa Sands.
A Mission Church designed by James Piers St Aubyn was dedicated by George Wilkinson on 11 March 1884. Costing between £600 and £700, it is built in the Gothic early-English style on a site donated by the Duke of Leeds. Ashton has a pub called the Lion and Lamb and in the past had a football team.
Ashton is also the name of places in the parishes of Poundstock, St Dominick and St Winnow. The meaning of Ashton is "ash-tree farm".
A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was opened at Balwest in 1829 for miners. The building is Grade II listed.