Treak Cliff Cavern

A project to enhance the facilities on a geological site, enable new visitor-based activities and attract more visitors who will spend more time in the area.

Full Project description EN PDF icon (376.41 KB)
Project summary: 

Treak Cliff Cavern is famous throughout the world for its unique and large deposits of ‘Blue John’ stone. It houses some of the UK’s most beautiful cave formations. The site owner needed to enhance the current facilities, enable new visitor-based activities and extend its capacity to produce finished products from the mined stone.

It gave the visitor centre an 18-month makeover. The interior was refurbished, a new museum was added, and new displays and signage were set up, along with a newly-equipped workshop available for schools and the general public to use.

Project results: 
  • Created 2-3 new full-time equivalent jobs (1 highly-skilled specialist artisan traineeship and long term post, 1-2 full-time equivalent visitor services posts, and a part-time skilled archivist/education liaison officer to handle archives and schools/college/university visits).
  • Increased spend in the local economy.
  • Increased visitor numbers by 30% compared to 2017 levels within 10 years.
  • Created new products:
    • ­1 collector’s market Blue John piece per year with a retail potential of £10.000.
    • ­New range of Cabochons (gems) for the hobby market.
    • ­2-4 additional smaller Blue John sculptures per year with retail potential of £20,000.
  • Increased the number of new visitors coming for overnight ‘jewellery experience’ packages.