Visit of Marek Lorenc, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Landscape Engineering and Geodesy, Agricultural University of Wroclaw, to the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, 3-10 August 2006 Participants: Sharron P Schwartz, University of Exeter; Ainsley Cocks, Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Office, Cornwall County Council; Kevin Baker, King Edward Mine and Richard Williams, Poldark Mine. Route: Ryanair return Wroclaw to Newquay via London Stansted Following the recent inscription of the Cornish Mining Landscape as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS), Professor Lorenc was invited to Cornwall by Dr Schwartz of the University of Exeter so that he could be shown around several of the 10 WHS areas in west Cornwall that are included in the inscription and more specifically, to visit the mining heritage sites of fellow Europamines’ members, Poldark Mine and King Edward Mine. All photographs that appear in this article have been supplied by Ainsley Cocks, Marek Lorenc and Sharron P Schwartz. Text © Sharron P Schwartz and Ainsley Cocks 1 Thursday 3 August Marek’s evening flight was on time and he was met at a very warm Newquay International (yes, we have finally gone global in Cornwall!) by Sharron and driven to the former copper mining town of Redruth where he was to stay with Sharron. Friday 4 August: West Basset, Marriott’s, the Great Flat Lode Trail, King Edward Mine, Carn Brea Castle The day’s events commenced at Carn Brea, a tor-strewn granite hill and one of the most important Neolithic sites in Western Europe, which towers above the towns of Camborne and Redruth and the extensively mined landscape between with its constellation of mining villages, relict mine buildings and smallholders’ field systems. From here Marek had a great view of the area where we would be taking him later that day. He was particularly interested in the monument that stands at the crest of the carn, erected in 1836 by the local population in honour of Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville of Tehidy, the head of a landed family who had made vast fortunes from the mines surrounding Carn Brea. The tree- fringed Tehidy estate, home of the Basset’s some 3 miles distant, was pointed out to Marek. From their mansion Carn Brea Monument erected they could see the carn with its monument and the in 1836 unusual castle dating from at least the fifteenth century, which once served as a chapel and then a hunting lodge. It is now a restaurant as Marek was to discover later that day. At 10.30 we had arranged to rendezvous in the car park of the former Seleggan tin smelting works with Ainsley, Fiona Flemming (a work placement with Cornwall County Council), Kevin, and Kingsley Rickard of the Trevithick Society and King Edward Mine, who is an authority on Cornish steam engine technology and the history of the mines along the Great Flat Lode (see definition on page 5). We took a brief look around what remains of the tin smelting works, which is not a great deal, but it was once one of the largest in the country. Unlike copper that was exported to South Wales for smelting, Cornwall smelted the majority of its tin which undoubtedly caused pollution. Marek asked about the direction of the prevailing winds and whether this caused a problem for neighbouring towns; Kingsley’s droll response - that our prevailing winds were from the south west so we therefore sent all our pollution to England - gave Marek an early insight into Cornish humour! By the time he returned to Poland he was well versed in this and was dishing it out like a true Cornishman! We drove the short distance to the West Basset Mines close to the mining village of Carnkie with its terraced granite miners’ cottages and prominent Wesleyan Methodist chapel. Our first stop was Lyle’s pumping-engine house and beam whim (capstan engine). Here Marek began the ‘anorak’s’ initiation into the mysteries of Cornish design-engine houses, and hopefully what will prove to be a lifetime’s fascination with boltholes in cylinder bedstones!! A heated exchange soon ensued among more established ‘anoraks’ as to what constituted a Cornish-design A heated debate ensued inside the beam whim engine house: what features did they engine house at West Basset about what exactly require to be categorised as such? constitutes a Cornish-design engine house! 2 This debate, started by an academic who shall remain unnamed, is one that has been hitherto lacking with no one actually defining what a Cornish-design engine house is, yet the term is freely used. All present agreed that it would be useful to have a working definition in the near future. Marek soon learnt that size most certainly matters where cylinder bedstones and boltholes are concerned! Measurements are often made inaccurately, as explained by Kingsley, with certain factors not always considered: the width of the cylinder flange, depth of the casing etc. The beam whim engine house had its granite cylinder stone in situ which Kingsley explained most probably meant that the engine was scrapped. Engines often had long careers and were moved to various mine sites; the cylinder stones were removed with the engine. Indeed, the engine houses themselves were an integral part of the engine and were built to certain specifications to accommodate them. There was considerable doubt as to whether this had an overtly mathematical and scientific underpinning – the thickness of the bob wall was determined by the size of the cylinder – as the recent Europamines’ Where the distance between cylinder bolt holes publication on interpreting Cornish is concerned, every inch really matters!! engine houses appears to suggest; we all agreed that rule of thumb was most likely used, as the Cornish were renowned for their intuitive ways of doing things and were seldom book-learned. It was also thought that a much larger statistical sample than was presented in the book was necessary before any firm conclusions could be drawn. Cornwall has lost almost three quarters of its engine houses since the early C20th. Millions of pounds have been spent conserving those that remain, particularly along the mineral tramways in the old Central Mining District (Camborne-Redruth) of the newly inscribed World Heritage Site which connect many of the mines. These have been rehabilitated as trail ways for walking, cycling and horse riding. It was explained to Marek that for many Cornish people engine houses are iconic buildings, intimately bound up with a sense of identity; they are a reminder in stone that Cornwall dominated the world in metalliferous mining and steam engineering for over a century, and as markers of former industrial prowess they represent ethnic pride; to describe them as ‘ruins’ is therefore pejorative as Sharron was at pains to point out. They should always be referred to as ‘extant remains’, ‘relict buildings’ or some such other non-offensive term. Kingsley described them as akin to chapels or cathedrals, illustrating the spiritual significance many people attribute to them. Nearby we passed Lyle’s pumping engine house that accommodated an 80-inch cylinder beam engine. Ainsley had brought along a selection of historic photographs to illustrate how the mine looked in its heyday and this greatly aided Kingsley’s explanation to Marek of how the two engine houses operated in conjunction with one another, the one for winding the other for pumping. Lyle’s Shaft has been grilled making it possible for visitors to gain an insight into the subterranean world below. Ainsley The West Basset Stamps dressing floor 3 explained that this is a far more sympathetic and aesthetically pleasing method of making safe a shaft, but sadly many have not been treated in this manner, having been capped with concrete down to bedrock with a small shabby concrete bollard erected on the top with a series of ventilation holes at its circumference. Kingsley, Kevin and Sharron agreed that mistakes had undoubtedly been made in the early days of consolidation and remediation of local mining landscapes and lessons had been learned. One particular bone of contention was the removal of spoil heaps that surrounded the mine buildings. Climbing further up the hill where a view of the Wheal Basset dressing floor across the valley could be seen, this point was well-illustrated: the frue vanner house and adjacent structures had been carefully consolidated yet the context for their existence – the heaps of attle (Cornish for spoil) - had been obliterated and a levelled grassy area complete with zigzag pathway instated. One small finger dump which drew hoots of derision from Kingsley and Sharron had been placed there for ‘geologists’ to pick through. ‘Surrey with engine houses’ was how it was described by one incensed industrial archaeologist when the work was competed in the mid-1990s. We progressed up the hill to the West Basset stamps and dressing floor which is one of the best examples of its kind in Cornwall. Here the stamps engine house can be seen (its 40-inch engine built by the nearby Tuckingmill Foundry in 1875) and the loadings for 80 head of Cornish stamps (32 on one side and 48 on the other). To the front are the extant remains of the frue vanner house and buddle floor, the latter containing a variety of circular concrete buddles: 7 convex, 7 concave and two ‘dumb’ buddles, used for dressing tin. The tin store survives adjacent to the dressing floor and on the west side are the extant Kingsley explains to Marek that the West remains of two Brunton calciners, with Basset dressing floor is the most complete associated chimney stack, used to drive off of its type in Cornwall impurities such as arsenic and sulphur by a process of roasting.