New Charles Rashleigh exhibition at Wheal Martyn Clay Works

A new exhibition at Wheal Martyn Clay Works near St Austell marks the bicentenary of the death of Charles Rashleigh in 1823. Rashleigh of Duporth, along with Joseph Treffry of Place, Fowey, was a mining entrepreneur who did much to shape the industrial landscape of mid Cornwall. 

Rashleigh’s vision created the extensive dock facilities at Charlestown in the late eighteenth century for the purpose of exporting copper ore, but this soon became one of the major china clay ports of Cornwall. 

Wheal Martyn is staging the new exhibition covering Rashleigh's remarkable life and legacy in collaboration with the Charlestown History Group, which has been presenting commemorative events in the village throughout the year.

Charlestown is today the best-preserved copper and china clay shipping port of the period anywhere in the world and Wheal Martyn tells the story of the port, as part of its role as an Area Centre for the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.

The Rashleigh exhibition is being held in the Roger Preston Gallery at Wheal Martyn and is open to the public from 22 September to 23 December 2023. It is free to enter with access being included in the museum admission. 

Please contact the Engagement Officer at Wheal Martyn for further information: 

engagementofficer@wheal-martyn.com

Wheal Martyn: https://www.wheal-martyn.com