During the mining boom, Hayle had two of the three largest mine engine foundries in the world (Harvey’s 1779-1903 and Copperhouse 1820-1869). Copperhouse was so named as it was the site of the copper smelters for the mines in the area. The Cornish Copper Company established this site in 1758. Copper ore from Cornwall was then shipped to South Wales.

The first major development at Hayle was the construction of the quay by John ‘Merchant’ Curnow in the 1740’s to service the mining industry. In 1758 the Cornish Copper Company moved from Camborne and set up a copper smelter at Ventonleague (Copperhouse Creek) and a canal was dug to bring vessels right up to the works.
The smelting process generated large amounts of waste. The copper slag was cast into large heavy dark bricks called locally ‘Scoria Blocks’ which were used as a building material in the town and can be seen today in many buildings. The blocks were sold at 9d (about 3p) for 20 and given free to employees of the Cornish Copper Company to build their own houses.

Copperhouse Pool was later modified to serve as a tidal reservoir to allow ships to travel up as far as the dock, and to flush or sluice the channel to keep it clear of sand and silt. As the mining boom folded in Cornwall, the engineering works and Foundry were closed in 1903 though the company continued to trade as general and builders merchant, eventually merging with UBM to become Harvey-UBM in 1969. Despite the demolition of much of Copperhouse Foundry and of Harvey’s, much of the historic industrial town and port of Hayle is still largely intact.