Caradon Hill is on Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in northeastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and originally dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history....

 in the former Caradon

Caradon

Caradon was a local government district in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It contained five towns: Callington, Liskeard, Looe, Saltash and Torpoint, and over 80 villages and hamlets within 41 civil parishes...

 district of Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. The summit is 371 metres (1,217.2 ft) above mean sea level.

The hill was once famous for its copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 mine

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

s but these are now closed. The South Caradon Copper Mine, 1 km to the SW of the transmitter, was the largest copper mine in the UK in its heyday, 150 years ago. Other disused copper and tin mines are scattered around the base of the hill, including the Wheal Phoenix, well-known among mineral collectors. The ruins of the Prince of Wales engine house are prominent at Wheal Phoenix. Granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 was also quarried nearby. The mining area around the southwest base of the hill form part of Crow's Nest

Crow's Nest, Cornwall

Crow's Nest is a village in Cornwall, England, UK. It is located within the civil parish of St Cleer, on the southeastern edge of Bodmin Moor, north of the town of Liskeard....

 SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest

Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

).

The Caradon Hill transmitting station television mast is near the summit of Caradon Hill at .