Leonor Medeiros with Stuart Smith, international industrial heritage expert, on Carn Brea overlooking Camborne mining town, Cornwall

Leonor Medeiros, while studying for a Masters in Heritage Management at the Ironbridge Institute, successfully completed her Work Attachment project with ICOMOS-UK at the end of June. Her project compared the experiences of UK and Portuguese mining sites and landscapes, identifying good practice in Britain to take home to Portugal.

The Report, entitled: ‘Managing Mining Landscapes: Sharing Experiences from the United Kingdom and Portugal‘, considers three sites in southern Portugal, situated on one of the largest sources of iron sulphide in the world, the Iberian Pyrite Belt. These are Lousal, Aljustrel and S. Domingos. Through site visits and meetings with conservation and heritage professionals at Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site and Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, Leonor learned about challenges concerning conservation, interpretation and opportunities for sustainable development and regeneration through, for example, cultural tourism.

Attending the ICOMOS-UK Summer Conference on Cultural Landscape Management enabled Leonor to meet several people involved in the management of industrial heritage, and in addition to field visits in the UK and Portugal, gained valuable experience in understanding how international guidelines such as the European Landscape Convention can be implemented for the successful conservation and presentation of a site.

Read the Managing Mining Landscapes report

Executive Summary of ‘Managing Mining Landscapes: Sharing Experiences from the United Kingdom and Portugal’ by Leonor Medeiros

This report is the result of a work placement with ICOMOS-UK, part of a MA in Heritage Management at the Ironbridge Institute, taken during May to June 2008, under the supervision of Tehmina Goskar. Its themes will be developed further into the course dissertation.

Lousal, Portugal, photo: Leonor Medeiros

The project aims to undertake an assessment of best practice for the management, presentation and interpretation of industrial mining landscapes, taking as examples two World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom – the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape and the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, which can suggest ideas of improvement to three developing mining sites in Portugal – Lousal, Aljustrel and S. Domingos.

Engine house restored as a private dwelling, Porthtowan, Cornwall

The focus on projects of restoration and conservation, the strong brand development and marketing strategies, the possibilities for creative interpretation and the variety of projects taking place in the UK have shown the opportunities of sustainable tourism-based development of abandoned mining sites; for the improvement of the local communities and the benefit for visitors. The importance of diverse international directives produced by organisations like ICOMOS also play an essential role overcoming challenges. In Portugal, with the investment in this area just beginning, the possibility to learn from the mistakes and successes of other sites provides invaluable information and excellent role models.

This report graciously acknowledges the time, effort and kindness of colleagues in Cornwall, Blaenavon and Portugal in enabling the necessary research.

Read the Managing Mining Landscapes report

Read the report in Portuguese

Link to ICOMOS Portugal