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Forming a natural border between Devon and Cornwall, the picturesque Tamar Valley is a tranquil and serene landscape which appears barely disturbed by the modern world.

Step back 140 years and the scene would be hardly recognisable.

In the mid-1800s the Tamar Valley was a booming industrial heartland with more than 100 mines rich in silver, tin, copper, arsenic and other minerals.

Morwellham Quay grew to serve these mines and carry ore down to the sea.

Barry Gamble

"Mining here was principally copper and arsenic - that's what the Tamar Valley is known for," explained Berry Gamble, interim director of Morwellham Quay.

"However there was a lot of tin mining on both sides of the river and there was silver and lead mining particularly on the Bere Alston peninsula.

"In all there are about 15 different metals commercially recorded in Cornwall and West Devon.

"Some minerals were shipped out raw such as the copper ore, others were smelted locally."

The boom times were fuelled by the discovery of Devon Great Consul, the richest copper mine in Europe - just four miles north of Morwellham.

Morwellham in its heyday

At its peak, between 1848 and 1858, it was the busiest inland port in England - busier even than Liverpool. At the time the Tamer Valley was Europe's main source of copper.

"You couldn't have moved for piles of ore here," said Barry.

"The whole quayside would have been covered with around 5,000 tons of ore and the agents of smelters in South Wales would be here sampling it before it was sold.

"The quay was a marketplace bustling with activity.

"Most of the ore was transported to the quay by overhead railway. The bottoms of the trucks would open and the ore would drop out onto the quay. Then it had to be shovelled by hand and barrowed onto the ships."

The bustling village had a school, two chapels and a farm, built by the Duke of Bedford, to help feed the growing population.ΜύΜύ

"At its height there were around 300 people working here at Morwellham," added Barry.

A cottage seen through waterwheel

"The population trebled in the early part of the 19th Century and the farm was an integral part of the industrial complex.

"There is a lot of stabling here. Heavy horses were clearly employed extensively for work across the quay. Even the reed beds were harvested for thatching."

The boom times didn't last and by 1900 the port was deserted and overgrown. Its decline was linked to the collapse of the nearby mines and the arrival in Tavistock of the Great Western Railway.

In 2006 the area was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its mining landscape, a designation that brings with it Β£6 million of public funding.

Some of that money has already been spent transforming the industrial complex at Morwellham Quay - making it the focal point of a mining heritage trail.

The restored Great Dock

Thousands of tons of mud and silt, a century of accumulation, have been cleared from the quays and the Great Dock has been structurally repaired.

The surrounding area has been re-paved with 30,000 new earthenware tiles to reconstruct the original smooth surface on which the precious ore was stored.

A network of paths and trails is being created, to open up part of the Tamar Valley which had previously been inaccessible to the public.

"Essentially the site was pretty much abandoned by 1900 and it remained largely asleep until 1970 when the Morwellham and Tamar Valley Trust was formed.

"It's taken the trust time to realise what it had.

"I can't think of a site anywhere which has a better range of industrial components still in tact that relate to that period of the Industrial Revolution.

"It's just ready for us to do the right kind of conservation."