[4] During the 1880s as many as 176 workers were employed at the mine, but in the ten years after North Levant's closure the site saw only intermittent activity by a few miners.

[3] At the turn of the 20th century a group of St Just miners who had emigrated to South Africa were forced to return by the outbreak of the Second Boer War.

[5] They leased the area and conducted more thorough prospecting, being encouraged enough to set up a company called Levant North (Wheal Geevor) in 1901.

By 1919, the works were moving west toward the coastline and the Victory shaft (named to celebrate the end of the First World War)[8] was sunk about 540 metres to the north-west.

From the end of World War II until the early 1960s both Geevor and South Crofty found it hard to raise capital and to recruit skilled miners.

[9] New investment, forward-looking management and rising tin prices in the 1960s improved matters[10] and at this time around 270 staff were employed by the mine.

During the 20th century Geevor drove over 85 miles (137 km) of tunnels from which it produced around 50,000 tons of black tin and made a profit of over £7 million.

The museum tells the story of tin mining in Cornwall and Geevor in particular, showing what happened on the surface and underground and what life was like for those who worked there, including oral history recordings.