Gunnislake village is on a steep valley side and developed with the mining activity in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Tamar valley became the richest copper -mining centre in Europe. There are many remains of this time to be found in the area
The seven arched New Bridge built at Gunnislake in the early 16th century, made it the lowest crossing point on the River Tamar right up to modern times with the construction of the Tamar road bridge at Saltash in 1962
There was a Civil War battle at the bridge, when the Royalist Sir Richard Grenville defended the bridge against the Parliamentarians under Lord Essex. The parliamentarian army took the bridge for the loss of 40 men, with the Royalists losing 200 men killed. .
As with many places in Cornwall, mining took place here for copper, tin, wolfram and arsenic. The narrow streets of miners cottages still exist today, as do the numerous ruins of mines and mine chimneys
Gunnislake pub The Rising Sun was probably the former bakehouse in the village.