Showing how renewables are part of our heritage!

Aim

Raising awareness of our renewable energy heritage with free community guide to the windmills, watermills and tidal mills of the Roseland.

Renewable energy is not new but part of our heritage

Our communities have a long history of productive use of renewable energy including through windmills, watermills and tidal power. Nevertheless, some of today's narratives on renewables are that they are new and unfamiliar, disruptive and sometimes even threatening to our local environments. 

The simple truth is almost the opposite. Many fossil fuels are the relative energy newcomers when compared to the renewable energy sources of wind and water employed sustainably in our communities to such great effect and for so many years by past generations.

We did a little research and we found that in our own backyard - the Roseland peninsula in Cornwall - watermills, windmills and tidal power were the go-to technologies for many productive uses for well over three centuries! Evidence of our renewable heritage is everywhere... in our street names (Windmill Hill), our art (see 'The Old Tide Mill' below) and our local landscapes.  Participa Cornwall, a not-for-profit based on the Roseland, would like to promote awareness of this collective renewable heritage as part of our CIC's wider campaign to address the climate and biodiversity crises and support community resilience to climate change at the local level. 

Our plan is to research, draft and design a free, accessible community guide (hard-copy) on the 'Roseland's renewable heritage'. Once produced, the guide will be disseminated to individuals, organisations and institutions in our community including to local schools. An electronic version will also be produced for wider dissemination online and via social media.   

We hope that this guide will be educational, contribute to community pride and promote a positive perception of renewable energy in our community and in other communities. In turn we hope this will pave the way for increased acceptance and opportunities for use of renewables, with positive environmental outcomes such as a reduction in carbon emissions, adoption of low carbon choices and the promotion of community resilience to climate change.  

Please support us and at the very least let's offset in a small way the millions spent each year on advertising by the fossil fuel industry!

Example of tidal power on the Roseland

The below painting entitled 'The Old Tide Mill' (by William Pitt, 1818-1900) depicts Polingey Mill in Gerrans on the Roseland peninsula in Cornwall. References to the mill date back to the early fifteenth century. Also called a 'sea mill', Polingey effectively transformed the energy of moving water into mechanical power for productive use including the grinding of corn. Similar tidal mills used the power of incoming tide water in a sustainable way for various activities including to run saw-mills, breweries and to pump sewage. A main attraction of the use of tide mills was that their supply of energy – moving tidal water – was entirely dependable and free from risks such as drought or even man-made water diversions. They were also considerably less expensive to build than water mills mainly because there is no need to construct a dam. The earliest tide mills are referenced in the doomsday book of 1086.    

About Participa Cornwall CIC

Participa Cornwall is a Community Interest Company (CIC) located on the Roseland Peninsula in West Cornwall. Our aim is to assist local communities in Cornwall in answering the 'Call to Action' to tackle the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis. Participa works closely with our local partners to help build grassroots resilience and to find home-grown solutions to challenges and problems. All profits are reinvested in the local community.

This project successfully funded on 19th January 2024