Visit of Marek Lorenc, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Landscape Engineering and Geodesy, Agricultural University of Wroclaw, to the Cornish World Heritage Site, 3-10 August 2006

Participants: Sharron P Schwartz, University of Exeter; Ainsley Cocks, Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Office, County Council; Kevin Baker, and Richard Williams, Poldark Mine.

Route: Ryanair return Wroclaw to 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 where he was to stay with Sharron.

Friday 4 August: West Basset, Marriott’s, the 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 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 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 - 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 (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 . 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. According to Kingsley, arsenic was never such a problem in the mines on the south side of Carn Brea, unlike those on the north side. Arsenic was however a valuable by-product condensed and collected by many Cornish and west Devon mines in zigzag chambers called labyrinths (pronounced lambreths) and sold for use in the burgeoning pharmaceutical and chemical industries and as an insecticide by the late C19th. West Basset’s ore was low in arsenic which was consequently not collected but the stack where the arsenical fumes were exhausted to the atmosphere is in good shape.

The extent of the invasive vegetation in the buddle area surprised Kingsley and as explained by Ainsley, was a matter for concern as the long term structural integrity of mine buildings was undoubtedly compromised by fast growing non-indigenous species such as buddleia, a native of west and central China introduced to Britain in about 1890 and named for botanist, Adam Buddle. The irony of the Kingsley explains the mysteries of plant’s success on the West Basset dressing buddling floor was not lost on Sharron who derived

4 several minutes of great merriment from this!! Kingsley quipped that the plant was a token of man’s failure as it always seemed to grow prolifically on abandoned industrial sites!

We next inspected the stamps engine house and loadings. The stamps engine had a cam- driven valve gear, which was unusual in Cornwall. Ore was conveyed to the stamps by two tramways, one from Lyle’s shaft which we had just inspected, and the other from Thomas’ and Marriott’s shafts across the valley, the raised embankment of which was now barely visible. Cassiterite (tin dioxide) was often locked and disseminated into hard rock and had to be pounded by stamps to liberate it so it could be recovered by means of a process of dressing. The ore was passed beneath the stamps which weighed anywhere between 4 and 8 cwts each and were raised by cams on a rotating axle which were released onto the ore that was passed beneath in a box containing water. The action of the stamps pounded the ore into a pulp which was fed into the frue vanner for separation. The square opening for chutes that conveyed the pulp into the frue vanner house from the stamps at West Basset can be seen. From here the pulp (now containing fine slimes) was taken in wheelbarrows to the buddles for further separation.

The frue vanner house contained a series of slow moving rubber belts which vibrated; this action caused the denser particles of tin to separate from the lighter gangue (waste matrix). Finer pulp from the frue vanners was subjected to further treatment in the buddles below. The pulp was fed in at the centre of convex buddles and rotating brushes, often made of griglan (heather), swept the lightest material to the edges leaving the metalliferous particles near the centre. Concave buddles, to which slime was introduced at the circumference, were used for finer slimes. It was impossible to recover all the tin from the mills and Kingsley explained that many small tin streaming operations were set up along the course of rivers to catch the tin that had escaped the mills of nearby mines. All made a living.

Apart from a fascination for Cornish-design engine houses (whatever that means…) Sharron has a thing about bricks!! Many of the buildings at West Basset have ornamental brick arches and some of these looked to have been made of locally produced brick. Although not being of a gambling nature she was prepared to bet a pint of beer that one arch contained bricks. Doing the gentlemanly thing, Ainsley decided to put the matter beyond doubt and with considerable difficulty climbed a wall to see. Sure enough the brick was from the St Day works, the largest of its kind in west Cornwall and the only Cornish brickworks with a Hoffman kiln. Sharron was only sorry she was driving as she was unable to take real advantage of the situation!!

The sun was by now high in the sky, things were warming up considerably and mouths were getting dry. We decided it was time to retire to Piece pub, one of the favourite watering holes of former South Crofty miners, to obtain much needed liquid sustenance! Marek was Industrial archaeology is keen to try some of the Cornish ales and we were only enough to make anyone climb too happy to indulge him in this desire, plying him with walls!! Ainsley (one brick short pints of Tinners. Great hilarity ensued over lunch with of a load?) inspects the walls Kingsley treating us to several very amusing stories. for a St Day brick! Marek was given a riotous history lesson about the trial of the world’s first practical road carriage, invented and successfully run up Camborne Hill on Christmas Eve 1801 by engineering genius, , who made deep lode mining in Cornwall possible with his invention of the high pressure and boiler. However during further tests 3 days later his road carriage, named the Puffing Devil, came to grief after speeding over a gulley in the road. The carriage was left in a shed with the fire still burning whilst the operators retired to a nearby public house for a meal of roast goose and drinks. Meanwhile the water boiled off, the engine overheated and the whole carriage burnt out, completely destroying it. Kingsley wittily remarked that the world’s first speeding offence,

5 first road traffic incident and first drink related debacle occurred that night!! The Cornish were not named inhabitants of West Barbary for nothing!!

After a leisurely lunch of sandwiches washed down with a few pints we headed for Marriott’s Shaft further along the Great Flat Lode - one of the largest and most continuous ore-bearing structures in Cornwall. The Great Flat Lode is so named as it dips south at around 30°, much flatter than the norm. Tin is abundant in the Great Flat Lode although many of the mines were originally worked for copper which overlay the tin lodes. The mines along the Great Flat Lode were therefore mainly developed in the last quarter of the C19th and the relict buildings reflect this fact.

Marriott’s Shaft at South Wheal Frances, is 340 fathoms (a little over 2,000 feet – 600 metres) deep and is circular and brick lined at the top, unusual features for a Cornish shaft; these were usually rectangular. The shaft is grilled allowing visitors a glance into the subterranean world Group at the Marriott’s complex on the below. This mine was equipped with cutting- Great Flat Lode Trail edge mining machinery in the late 1890s, and this included a pumping engine employing a beam mounted underneath two inverted vertical compound cylinders, a rare set up in Cornwall. Buildings include a crusher, a miners’ dry, an engine house for a 2-cylinder compound horizontal engine , a compressor house (erected in 1906), the pumping engine house (not a Cornish design one!) and the six-arched boiler house alongside that accommodated 6 Lancashire boilers which served all the engine houses on site. Again, this was an unusual feature in Cornwall but common for example, on the collieries in England.

We next walked over to the two Cornish engine houses at Pascoe’s Shaft. The larger of the two, the pumping engine house, was built in 1887 and housed an 80-inch engine manufactured by the Foundry and which had Group in front of Pascoe’s previously seen pumping-engine house, South service at a lead Wheal Frances mine near East. Kingsley explained that the slit windows in this engine house, popular for a time only in the 1880s, meant that you could date this house to that decade. The slit windows, which are not a common feature in local engine houses, elicited more amusement about what Marek getting lessons in Cornish exactly constituted a Cornish-design engine house! humour as well as Cornish– This engine house has been consolidated and access design engine houses!!

6 has been made to the cataract pit via a series of stone steps which none of us were too impressed about. We considered that this degraded its authenticity.

We then explored the whim engine house opposite which was erected in 1879 for a 30- inch whim engine. The cylinder bedstone was still in situ meaning the engine was scrapped. Its boiler house, which contained two boilers, is largely intact. Kingsley explained that often the engine houses were lime washed on the outside, and plastered on the inside. Traces of this could be seen in many Cornish engine houses. Sharron commented that in the early C19th, the Midsummer Festival much loved by the miners, was an occasion when the engine houses were given a fresh coat of lime wash and decorated with greenery. This custom was continued overseas, particularly in Australia where at Burra in South Australia, ‘Johnny Green’, the miner’s mascot, is on permanent display aloft a chimney at the entrance to the town.

We explained to Marek that these and other engine houses lie along rehabilitated tramways that have been opened for View from the interior of the winding recreational use by the Mineral Tramways engine house (erected to accommodate a Project, the most extensive programme of its 30-inch rotary engine) towards Pascoe’s kind in Britain. Almost 20 miles (32 km) of pumping-engine house walks and tracks through the mining heartlands of mid- and west Cornwall have been made available and there are aims to over 37 miles (60km) of walks available in the near future. We also explained that concern for engine houses and mine spoil heaps now commands wide interest in the community. The attitude of people from varied backgrounds reflects the fact that people’s connection with the mining landscape has changed during the last century. Where the landscape was once exploited to obtain minerals, we now have to decide what to do with the many hectares of former mining land particularly in the light of heritage tourism, a new market and one in which Cornwall is well placed to profit through its superb industrial landscape recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Much contention has surrounded the process of reclamation, consolidation and preservation of the mining landscape in Cornwall. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s much was made of the choice of language used to describe the mining landscape: ‘derelict land’, ‘mining ruins’, or ‘wasteland’. These are pejorative terms, with connotations of neglect, abandonment, uselessness, ugliness, contamination, and even danger. Such terms suggested that ‘derelict’ or ‘wasteland’ should be reclaimed and put to far better use - for building houses or retail outlets which would have tangible Time out for yet another hilarious story along economic outputs while mining ‘ruins’, the Mineral Tramway’s route near Pascoe’s that serve no practical or productive Shaft: industrial archaeology should be x-rated!! purpose, could be swept away in such new land developments.

7 The idea that something ‘derelict’ or in ‘ruins’ might be of inherent aesthetic or cultural value was often not taken into due consideration, while the argument that dereliction might actually be central to individual or group identities was seldom considered at all. Considerable hostility by local communities to the reclamation of mining landscapes and the shaft capping schemes that accompanied this resulted in often bitter debate about how land reclamation and mine site conservation should be carried out, if at all. Opponents singled out mine dump removal, tree planting and the creation of grassy spaces with picnic benches as ‘sanitisation’ - unjustifiable transformations of the Cornish mining landscape. As we all agreed, the debate is still on-going and although we all love Cornish-design engine houses, we explained to Marek that they should not be the only industrial buildings singled out for preservation to the detriment of other important mining heritage features.

We headed back towards the car park stopping to admire the engine houses once more and taking five to hear another of Kingsley’s enormously funny stories, before driving to King Edward Mine Museum.

King Edward is typical of many small Cornish mines of the first decade of the 20th Century. Formerly known as South Condurrow it closed in 1896 amid the tin slump of the 1890s. The following year the old part of South Condurrow was presented to the Group outside the entrance of the King Edward Mine (CSM) for training purposes Museum. Does the cardboard cut out want to become and renamed King Edward in an Europamines’ member? honour of Edward VII soon after his accession. Remarkably the mine has survived almost intact and today is the oldest complete mine site in Cornwall. All of the buildings are Listed Grade 2 star which means that they are considered to be of national importance.

The mine is no longer used for training purposes by the CSM. The site is owned by local landowning dynasty the Pendarves Family who are incredibly supportive of on-going work, and is operated by volunteers with support from District Council. The site houses numerous important mining artefacts, many of which reflect the fact that the mill at the mine, set up in 1897, utilised the latest contemporary ore dressing equipment. The Mineral Tramways Great Flat Lode Trail passes through the site and the Mineral Tramways exhibition can be seen in the old calciner.

The volunteers have several projects in the Kingsley sitting on an engine bob pipeline, including the restoration of a William manufactured by West and Sons of West steam engine manufactured at his St Blazey in 1851. Foundry in 1851. They hope to be able to reinstall this in an engine house on site and put it back into steam.

8 Inside the museum are several important displays of mining equipment, including various types of explosive and fuses, and some social history of the men who were former CSM students. The mill is exceptional in that it has some very rare examples of tin dressing equipment, including a round frame, one of only two left in Cornwall.

On display are rag-frames, shaking tables, kieves, and the only full-size set of operational Californian stamps in Europe. These were installed in the mill in 1897 and Kevin explains to Marek how a round frame every so often are started up for worked. This piece of equipment, once demonstrations. common in mills, is now very rare

KEM has a large collection of tin dressing equipment, much of which has been in situ since 1897.

Californian stamps worked on the same principle as the Cornish ones, but differed in one fundamental way: as they fell onto the ore they rotated, so the heads wore evenly. The shop at the site is impressive, well- stocked with a good selection of mining history books, mineral specimens, and quality giftware. No schlock for sale here!!

Reluctantly we said goodbye to Fiona, Kevin and Kingsley, who is an absolute mine of information and exceptionally good company, and headed back to Redruth via Illogan Highway where Marek saw the Kingsley and Marek beside the battery of of South Crofty Mine, a landmark Californian stamps, the only full size for miles around. This mine was the last operational set in Europe operational tin mine in Europe and Marek was due to visit there the following week.

9 That evening Marek, Sharron and Ainsley met up with Sharron’s family at Carn Brea Castle where we were to dine. Carn Brea Castle is a C14th stone twin towered fortress standing within the ramparts of an Iron Age Hill Fort and built into the clitter (huge granite boulders) which fascinated Marek. It may have started life as a chapel to St Michael and at some time in the C18th it was rebuilt by the Basset family as a hunting lodge.

The day was rounded off with a candlelit dinner at the The restaurant is run by a medieval Carn Brea Castle Jordanian Bedouin, the uncle of Julia Sawalha and specialises in Middle Eastern food (a firm favourite with Sharron). The ambience of the candlelit medieval castle with its granite walls is superb and the food is always fabulous.

It is possible to go onto the castle’s roof where commanding coast to coast views over the mining districts can be obtained. Marek could see the Great Flat Lode mines that we had explored earlier that day. Sipping cool beer in the warm summer wind, we looked seawards past the silhouetted monument to Lord de Dunstanville and watched the sun go down in a riot of From the castle’s roof, the views over the old mining districts colour over the Atlantic are spectacular: the engine houses of Wheal Uny are in the Ocean. foreground with and the engine house of Pennance Consols Mine in the distance

10 Saturday 5th August: Blue Hills Tin Streaming Works, Coombe; ; Cligga Mine;

A hot, humid day beckoned as we set off for the St Agnes mining district, another of the areas that make up the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. Our first stop was the Blue Hills Tin Streaming Works operated by father and son, Colin and Mark Wills. The theme of this superb site is extremely focussed and its authenticity is a very strong selling point. Tin has been produced in Trevellas Coombe for centuries by tin streamers working alluvial sands and gravel on the beaches and valley floor and by miners tunnelling into the hillsides and sinking shafts deep underground, following the tin-rich veins of ore. Remarkably, Colin and Mark continue this long tradition, obtaining tin from the nearby beaches that Colin Wills explains that cassiterite is found in many different has been cast up from types of rock and also as gravels. Miners and bal maidens (who the ocean floor. They dressed the rocks at the mine’s surface) would have been able have expert knowledge to spot the different mineral bearing rocks of the mineralization of the St Agnes area, how tin was located, extracted and dressed, both from underground and alluvial sources. The site contains an operational set of Cornish stamps driven by an overshot waterwheel, a buddle where the pulp from the stamps was treated and various examples of equipment for separating tin from its waste matrix, including spiral classifiers and shaking tables. They also smelt tin on site and create a variety of beautifully crafted items of jewellery and giftware which are offered for sale.

Tours begin with an introduction to the various types of rocks into which cassitertite is disseminated, the mineralization is expertly explained and visitors can handle the rocks down to gravel sized pieces.

Next vanning is demonstrated and Colin expertly uses a vanning shovel to illustrate how tin particles, being heavier that the gangue or waste rock, can be Using a vanning shovel, Colin expertly concentrates a sample of ore

11 separated. A sample of pulverised ore was placed on the flat shovel and agitated under water. The tin appeared at the top of the shovel. A good vanner was extremely important to a mine’s success as he could precisely test the concentration of ore in a sample and therefore indicate whether a lode was worth The heavier tin particles (far left of the shovel) are separated from mining or not. the lighter ‘gangue’ or waste materials

Next we proceeded outside to see the waterwheel which powers a set of Cornish stamps. River water is channelled along the contour of the hillside into a leat and turns the overshot wheel.

There are 2 sets of 6 head of stamps, uncommon as Cornish stamps were usually in a set of 4 or 5, but only one battery was operational. The noise levels were not as high as we had anticipated and Colin later explained that he had to take measures to keep the noise down so as not to upset nearby The overshot waterwheel used to power the stamps residents.

The din from a battery of Cornish stamps was considerable. It is hard to imagine how noisy it must have been for residents in villages close to the mines which had many batteries of stamps in the C19th and early C20th. It was said that people often woke up in the night if the stamps at their local mine stopped for some reason. The silence was deafening!

Nearby was a restored buddle complete with griglan (heather) brushes which gave Marek a Marek and Ainsley inspect the stamps battery good example of a working

12 buddle of the type he had seen the previous day at the West Basset dressing floor.

Colin and Mark demonstrate the complete cycle of tin at their site, from the raw tin stone, through the liberation of the mineral from its waste matrix, showing how it is dressed, right down to the smelting process and finally the crafting of the metal into end products for sale.

Tin smelting is not usually performed in front of visitors for obvious health and safety reasons. The site, operational for Buddle complete with griglan brushes about 10 years and much improved since Sharron’s visit there in 1996, is unique in Cornwall and got the thumbs up from all of us as a venue definitely not to be missed.

In dire need of liquid refreshment, we headed to the aptly named Miners Arms at , a charming C16th Cornish pub with interesting mining memorabilia and great food. Lunch of fresh sandwiches was swiftly wolfed down with copious amounts of lager! Suitably refreshed, we set off for Wheal Coates with its iconic engine houses sitting majestically on the cliffs near Chapel Porth.

Left: the pumping engine house at Towanroath Shaft, a Grade II Listed building. Right: the winding and stamps engine houses. The buildings are maintained by the National Trust This mine retains two impressive Cornish-design engine houses for stamping/winding and pumping respectively, and a number of other relict structures. It is the latter cliff-side pumping engine house at Towanroath Shaft which is best known, however, and is most often depicted in everything from postcards and tourism brochures to advertisements for Cornish pasties. Tin production is first recorded at Wheal Coates in 1855 though some copper is known to have been produced before that date and throughout the latter half of the C19th. Surviving outcrop workings nearby are clearly of much greater antiquity, however, with documentary records for these dating to 1692. The final phase of working at Wheal Coates, between 1911 and 1914, was to employ a Tuckingmill Foundry gas engine for pumping at Towanroath Shaft, sited on a long concrete loading behind the existing engine house. This served in place of the steam beam engine which had been removed sometime after 1885.

13 The Towanroath engine house was one of the earliest in Cornwall to be consolidated by the National Trust c.1970, at a time when mine building consolidation techniques where very much in their infancy. While the standard of the work is generally good, details of stonework and pointing differ from current best practise and Marek was able to compare and contrast these techniques with other more recent building consolidation works seen along the Great Flat Lode the previous day. The afternoon proved ideal for photography with mainly blue sky and some scudding cloud enabling Marek to get some excellent shots of the engine house with the Atlantic breakers beyond. After seeing the sea from the cliff top, it was time to depart and get down to beach level further along the coast, where an underground experience awaited.

Ainsley and Marek in front of the Towanroath pumping engine house

We headed north along the coast towards Perranporth to experience Cligga Mine, one of the most visited underground workings in Cornwall. Mining has been taking place at Cligga since well before the C19th but the majority of the surface features, the dressing floors, and underground workings to be seen today date from the mid to late C20th. The UK government Non-Ferrous Mineral Development Control prospected for strategic supplies of wolframite (iron manganese tungsten) to aid munitions

Cligga headland from the air; mineralisation is manufacture in the early 1940s, clearly evident in the cliffs following a previous small scale development in the late 1930s. During the 1960s/1970s Geevor Mine also undertook a sampling programme to determine workable reserves of cassiterite (tin dioxide) and other saleable minerals. Cligga Head is a favourite location of geologists with the spectacular greisen outcrops within the granite at the cliff top being notable geological features which greatly interested Marek who is a geologist! Cligga mine itself is centred on Contact Shaft, the main hoisting and access way, which is sited some 500 feet (152 metres) east of the Cligga headland cliffs. The tour of the mine was limited to the level accessible from the Beach Adit portal due to time restrictions but two further levels are accessible in the upper reaches of the cliffs. After changing into the very latest in troglodyte fashion-ware (!!) and carefully negotiating the circuitous path lined by old drill steels down the 300 feet (91 metres) high cliffs in sweltering heat, the group entered via the Beach Adit portal just above the high tide mark. It was a relief to be inside where it was cooler! Proceeding along No.1 Drive, the 3, 2 and 1 Crosscuts were

14 encountered respectively, and finally the flooded sump of Contact Shaft itself. The party (or ‘anoraks’ to use the technical term) then proceeded to explore a series of pre-C20th workings to the north of the drive off No.1 Crosscut, adjacent to an area where significant stoping had been undertaken. Further stopes to the south of the drive, east and west of the same crosscut, retained box holes (Cousin Jack Chutes) in places used to draw down broken ore from the workings above. Marek expressed his interest in the geology of the mine and observed the greisen mineralization, so prominent in the granite outcrops at surface, present within the No.3 Crosscut; crystals of wolframite were also observed in broken granitic rock nearby and the best of these were eagerly stuffed into pockets (is this allowed in a World Heritage Site?!). After spending an extremely interesting hour and a half underground, the group struggled back up the cliffs tired, sweaty and dirty, and very much looking forward to a long (alcoholic!) drink in the nearest hostelry. After removing our troglodyte’s garb and showering, we changed into something cool and hip and set off for Porthtowan to the Blue Bar, a surf venue on the beach which is a firm favourite with Ainsley and Sharron. Here we introduced Marek to Cornish sub-culture: cool Hoegaarden on tap, al fresco food eaten as the sun was setting and live music which rounded off a great day.

The beach adit at Cligga complete with ‘heritage’ car exhaust!!

Sharron beside a Cousin Jack ore Sharron pointing out the impressive chute timbering within a stope; Marek doesn’t look wholly convinced!!

15 Sunday 6th August: Geevor Mine, St Just in , Levant Steam Engine, , Wheal Edward, Wheal Owles and

After a leisurely breakfast, the group motored down to the far west of Cornwall to the village of Pendeen and Geevor Mine, one of the last tin producers to operate in Cornwall. Here we linked up with Kevin and our group was met by Bill Lakin, Chair of Pendeen Community Heritage, who had kindly given up his valuable Sunday morning to give us a guided tour and provide an outline of future developments. Mining here goes back to at least the early C18th and has been at the centre of Pendeen life since well before Geevor’s establishment from the former North Levant mine as Geevor Tin Mines Ltd. in 1911. The final Geevor mine sett was an amalgamation of over 30 smaller enterprises and also includes sections of Boscaswell Downs, Levant and Botallack; the workings extend out under the ocean floor.

To the south of the mine a major engineering feat was completed in the mid C20th when a hole in L-R Kevin, Marek, Bill Lakin and Sharron in front of the the seabed in Levant Mine was Victory head frame sealed and the mine dewatered eventually enabling Geevor to mine the extensions of the Levant Lodes under the Atlantic seabed. In order to adequately exploit the deep ore reserves at Levant and to make available the deeper seaward extension of certain Geevor lodes, the management decided to sink a new shaft: Victory Sub Vertical Shaft. In 1975 Victory Shaft was deepened with ore- passes modified and new ore handling facilities installed. The new shaft was sunk from 15 level in a seaward direction with the first phase to 19 level completed in 1977. Development on the levels 16, 17, 18 and 19 then commenced. A major expansion of the Mill was completed in 1980.

In the autumn of 1985 the price of tin fell suddenly and calamitously to around a third of its previous value. The mine was put onto a Local people fought hard to keep the care and maintenance basis in 1986, with no mine open government aid forthcoming, and most of the workforce was made redundant. With a change in ownership and a modest rise in the tin price, limited production resumed in 1988. However, with another fall in the tin price, production was again halted in 1990. With no evidence of a recovery in the price of the metal, and although local people fought hard to keep the mine open, the pumps were switched off in 1991 and the mine was allowed to flood.

When the mine closed it was realised that here was an opportunity for a near-complete C20th mine complex to be preserved and to remain as a focus for the local community. In 1991 the mine, which retained the steel headframe atop Victory Shaft (1919) together with the full compliment of mill

A poignant reminder in the miner’s dry of Geevor’s 16 closure in 1990 buildings, service workshops and miners’ dry, was acquired by Cornwall County Council and a programme of carefully planned and directed remediation instigated to establish a mining visitor attraction.

After much hard work and financial commitment by many individuals and organisations, Geevor opened to the public in August 1993 and has since slowly but steadily improved its facilities to include a museum, an underground experience featuring C18th workings and a cafe complex, the latter with a stunning picture-window view over the broad sweep of the nearby Atlantic. Since October 2001, Geevor has been managed and operated by Pendeen Community Heritage (PCH), a local registered charity with over 300 members. L-R Marek, Kevin and Bill Lakin in the miner’s dry We were shown through the museum with its fine collection of mining artefacts, including a timber pipe, which is thought to have formed part of a sectional pump column. This was exposed by violent storm seas in March 2002 outside an adit at Porth Nanven Beach near . It has been radiocarbon dated between 1510 and 1600 CE and is the largest and most intact surviving organic relic of Cornwall's industrial past. Marek was impressed with the mineral specimens on display in the museum and the various items of the Holman collection (a former foundry at St Just) which included numerous original and rare wooden patterns. We were also treated to a tour of the mill and miners’ dry, which we all agreed had huge visitor potential. Geevor has in recent years opened some of its shallow C18th and C19th workings to the public and although this work has been carried out on a very limited budget, we all agreed it was well done with sympathetic use of lighting and various mining artefacts to give visitors a good impression of what it was like to work underground.

One of the things that impressed us during our visit was the degree of involvement of and democratic engagement with the local community. For example, there is an on- going oral history project which will record the testimonies of former miners and members of the wider community, and many of the staff at Geevor are ex- employees of the mine. Black and white photographs of ex-miners that really capture their spirit and character displayed on the walls after visitors have been through the mill complex reinforce the sense that mining transcends mere buildings. Strong links with the recent past Geevor’s extensive mill has huge potential are to a large degree responsible for the for heritage tourism purposes high quality of the visitor experience by helping the mine retain a real sense of place.

PCH has recently gained a £3.8million Heritage Lottery Grant (HLF) which will enable the creation of an exciting new museum facility sited within the former Top Fitting Shop. Planning for this has been underway for some months and building consolidation/conversion work is due to commence shortly, with completion by of the project expected by Easter 2008.

‘John Marek’ meets Ian Davey, an ex- 17 Geevor miner, but by now is familiar with Cornish humour!! During the tour it was explained to Marek that several miners at Geevor were of Polish origin and came to Cornwall to fill the gap in the mining labour market during and after the Second World War. Many married local girls and have remained in Cornwall. To make working with the Cornish miners easier, all the Polish hands were informally renamed ‘John’ to avoid pronunciation/recollection problems; it was therefore only fitting that Marek was duly christened ‘John Marek’ in strict accordance with Geevor tradition! We could barely believe that we had spent 4 hours with Bill at Geevor, and we had worked up quite a thirst, so beat a hasty retreat to the famous Star Inn at St Just in Penwith. A very old pub and a favourite of former local miners, John Wesley stayed here while on a preaching tour to the mining population in 1777. Pints in hand, we made our way outside to the courtyard with its trees, shrubs and flowers to sit in the sun and watch Marek devour his first Cornish pasty! Suitably refreshed, we took Marek to see a bit of St Just in Penwith which is a fine example of an old mining town. During the C19th St Just in Penwith was one of the most important mining districts in Cornwall both for copper and tin. Mines within the area included Boscaswell Downs, Balleswidden, Parkenoweth, Boscan, Wheal Owls, Wheal Boys, Levant, Botallack and Geevor.

Like a true Cornishman, Marek The streets with their narrow alleys with vistas to sea tucks into his first Cornish pasty and moor greatly impressed Marek as did the old town washed down with a pint! square which had recently undergone some urban regeneration. All the cables were placed underground and the square tidied up considerably. St Just has one of the best preserved 'Plain an Gwarry’s' (Cornish - playing place) in Cornwall. These sites were open air performance areas used for entertainment and instruction and were common across Cornwall. St Just's Plain an Gwarry continues this historic assciation with open air entertainment, occasionally hosting productions of the Cornish Ordinalia mystery plays which date from the medieval period.

In its centre are several large granite blocks riddled with holes. Sharron explained to Marek that these were made by local miners during drilling competitions. The miners worked in pairs, one swinging the hammer while the other held the drill bit giving it half a turn between blows. Marek’s geologist’s eye noticed more than the holes: the large megacrystic feldspar crystals of the granite which were aligned in a flow pattern. He explained that this granite formed very deep in the earth’s crust.

We next headed off for the Levant Mine which is undoubtedly a very old mine, records indicating activity here during the Elizabethan period, and its workings extend out under the Atlantic Ocean. By 1904 it had attained its greatest depth of 350 fathoms. Access to the lower levels was achieved by sinking two shafts out under the sea, Old Submarine shaft connecting the 210 to the 302 fathom level and, New Submarine Shaft Sharron explains to Marek what connecting the 260 to the 350 fathom level. purpose the Plain an Gwarry at St Just in Penwith served

Access to the deepest workings in Cornish mines was aided by the introduction of man engines, the first in Britain being installed at Tresavean Mine near Redruth in 1842. In 1857 a man engine was installed at Levant that enabled the miners to descend and ascend the 266

18 fathom level (approximately 1800 feet – 550 metres, from surface). Like Tresavean Mine, Levant is inextricably linked with the history of the man engine In Cornwall but for less pleasant reasons. Levant was the scene of a terrible tragedy when on Monday 20th 1919 the main connecting rod of the man engine broke and 31 men and boys lost their lives, most falling hundreds of fathoms to their death down the shaft. Such a calamity accelerated the decline of the mine which shut down in 1930. In the late 1950s neighbouring Geevor Mine began to investigate the possibility of reopening Levant to enable them to work the seaward extension of their own lodes. Initial investigations in Skip Shaft revealed that the sea had broken in to the old workings. This hole through to the ocean was eventually traced to a notorious weak spot in Levant on the 40 fathom level. It took two Levant Mine, now under the care of the National Trust attempts to seal this breach but by the end of the 1960s this had been successfully achieved. However, Geevor and Levant sadly succumbed to the collapse in the price of tin in 1985 and closed in 1990. Both mines are now flooded to sea level.

Left: Ainsley shows Marek the working model of a Cornish pumping engine engine. Right: Ainsley and Marek admire the bob inside Michell’s engine house

19

The National Trust acquired a substantial part of the site at the end of 1999 and have undertaken a great deal of stabilisation work within it, including conservation of the Pumping Engine House, Compressor House, Engine House, and several other buildings and structures. The main pumping engine house at Engine Shaft, built in 1835 for a 70-inch Harvey engine, is extant and Michell’s engine house contains a 24-inch whim engine, the sole surviving piece of machinery on the mine which stands in the same house as it worked in for 90 years. It too was manufactured by Harvey’s of foundry in 1840 and is Cornwall’s oldest operational beam engine. To our delight it was in steam during the course of our visit giving Marek a great insight into how a high-pressure Cornish steam engine worked and complimenting his visit to various Cornish engine houses that accommodated such machines over previous days.

The winding engine has an interesting history. In 1935, just five years after the mine was closed, the beam engine became the first to be preserved on its working site by a group of private individuals: the Cornish Engine Preservation Society, now the Trevithick Society. Between 1984 and 1992 a group of dedicated volunteers from the Trevithick Society, otherwise known as the ‘Greasy Gang’, restored the engine which is now under the care of the National Trust having been handed over by the Society in 1967. In 1990 the National Trust and the Trevithick Society jointly launched the Levant Beam Engine Appeal to raise a sum of £128,000 required to complete the restoration and to provide a means of steaming. Using the funds obtained, the National Trust rebuilt the ruined boiler house and installed a generator of electricity and an oil-fired boiler. An old Cornish boiler was obtained and installed in a non- working manner to show how steam was raised before. The engine first ran again in steam in These boys are obsessed with size! 1992. Another debate about how many inches between the cylinder boltholes!! Marek enjoyed inspecting Skip Shaft, 278 fathoms (508 metres) deep below adit level, and could see that like many other old Cornish shafts, it is crooked and of restricted size. Passing by a cylinder bedstone complete with bolts outside Michell’s engine house, the boys began once more to discuss the likely size of the engine cylinder. Sadly none had a tape measure to hand!!

We next progressed up slope to the remains of the miners’ dry and the entrance to the man engine shaft. Here the miners changed into their underground clothes before descending an unusual spiral staircase to the tunnel leading to Man Engine Shaft. The stairway and tunnel have recently been consolidated and are open to the public. The miners’ dry contains two baths which were not common on Cornish mines, being more popular in the

The restored tunnel leading from the miners’ dry to the man engine shaft 20 collieries in England. The recently restored tunnel has unusual square notches cut into the rock face. It has been surmised that these were a form of locker, where the miner could leave personal items. A large chute in the tunnel contained clay, used by the miners to affix candles to their hats. Man engine shaft, scene of the disaster, is still a poignant memory in Pendeen and looking down the dimly lit shaft one felt great sympathy for the fate of those hapless miners of 1919.

After a quick break for a snack we said goodbye to Kevin who had to get back to Camborne and headed over to Botallack Mine, one the most recognisable mining scenes in Cornwall with the twin engine houses of the Crowns section on a cliff-edge promontory.

As with Geevor, Botallack grew to include the setts of numerous other smaller mines and was to produce a wide range of ores including those of copper, tin, cobalt, lead, zinc, iron, manganese, arsenic, uranium and silver. Marek taking a quiet minute to soak in the atmosphere at Botallack is known to have Crowns engine house, Botallack been in operation before 1721, and was probably the site of tin extraction by the late 16th century. By the early years of the 19th century the mine is recorded as producing mainly copper, tin and arsenic. The inspirational setting of the two engine houses has attracted the attention of many artists and writers and the mine has seen Royal visits, both at surface and underground, during the C19th and C20th. The upper of the two buildings housed Pearce’s Whim (winder) which was constructed c.1860 to service the then recently sunk Boscawen Diagonal Shaft, which commences just above the high tide mark and runs out under the Atlantic at an average of 32.5 degrees to the horizontal. Historic photographs depict an impressive but precarious- looking timber trestle which supported the single-skip road that ran from the front of the winder to the mouth of the shaft, c.65 metres distant. This gave access to the submarine lodes half a mile offshore but was not without its hazards, as was demonstrated by a serious accident in April 1863, when the iron haulage chain parted sending eight men and a boy in the single skip down the shaft to their deaths. This incident did not, however, deter the Prince and Princess of Wales from riding in the same skip, albeit with wire rope haulage, when visiting the mine two years later! Both Pearce’s engine house and its sister pumping engine house below, the latter dating from 1835, were consolidated during the mid 1980s through the dedicated efforts of the Carn Brea Mining Society. Today they are an outstanding landmark to the ingenuity and courage of the 19th century mine adventurers, One of the finest views in Cornwall: the iconic Crowns captains, engineers, masons, pumping and winding engine houses, Botallack

21 timbermen, miners and others who constructed and used them.

Marek’s brief visit focused on the Crowns engine houses due to the tight nature of the itinerary but the group did have time to inspect the recently consolidated arsenic calciner, labyrinth and chimney which were constructed during the unsuccessful re-working of the mine between 1906 and 1914. We all agreed that the consolidation which included substantial rebuild in brick was of a high quality, sympathetically undertaken and much better than that which we had seen at Wheal Coates.

Leaving Botallack we headed across the cliffs past the Count House to West Wheal Owles which was worked for uranium among other ores. Uraniferous material on the dumps around Wheal Owles will send a geiger counter needle skyrocketing! Wheal Owles was a large concern: at its zenith in the 1860s it had 11 engine houses and 29 miles of levels. We were visiting the Cargodna section otherwise known as West Wheal Owles. There is a fine granite built engine house here that accommodated a 36-inch pumping engine with a collared shaft in front and a balance bob pit at an angle to the pathway.

West Wheal Owles has the dubious reputation of being the site of Cornwall’s third largest mine disaster, when on January 10, 1893, 19 men and a boy were drowned by holing into the flooded workings of neighbouring Wheal Drea caused by a surveying error. None of the bodies were recovered and the mine never re-opened, despite several attempts to float it as Wheal Marek at West Wheal Owles engine Owles and Boscean United. house. This mine was the site of a dreadful disaster in 1893 We then walked across to the engine house on Wheal Edward stamps. Two inclined shafts extend out under the sea from this mine which was worked for tin, copper, uranium and pitchblende. An interesting feature of this mine was the enormous buddle in front of the engine house.

It was getting dim by now and mouths were dry so we retired to the North Inn in Pendeen for dinner. The walls are decorated with various mining scenes and memorabilia and the clientele was interesting: here we met Stewart, one of the miners whose photograph had appeared on Ainsley and Marek at Wheal Edward Stamps the wall of Geevor’s mill!

22 Monday 7th August: Sennen, Land’s End, Men an Tol, Lanyon Quoit, Holy Well, Boskednan Circle, Ding Dong Mine, Zennor

The day dawned grey and drizzly but the mist lifted as the tide went out while we breakfasted. By the time we set out the sun was shining intensely from a clear blue sky. We were heading to Penwith once more as Sharron wanted to introduce Marek to some of pre- Christian Cornwall. Penwith is rich in megalithic remains which exist cheek by jowl with later mine workings. The spectacular rugged cliffs and sandy beaches of the north coast. This cove was popular with miners from nearby Camborne and We took the coast district who came here to fish road which traverses the top of the magnificent cliffs of Cornwall’s wild north coast, stopping so Marek could see one of the more picturesque coves formerly used by local miners who used to catch fish and crabs there. We drove to Sennen where we enjoyed a leisurely lunch of crab sandwiches washed down by a cool Leffe beer at the Beach Restaurant with its commanding views of the surf beach. We then walked the coast path to Land’s End so that Marek could say he had been to the first and last part of Britain. We admired the stunning cliff scenery with its weathered, lichen covered granite boulders, but did not go into the complex that has grown there over the past two decades as it is unbelievably commercialised and kitsch.

The Penwith peninsula is largely unspoilt and contains an ancient landscape. Sharron explained to Marek that the field boundaries and the fields they comprise are of great antiquity: between three and four thousand years old. Our next stop was the Men an Tol (in the , ‘stone with a hole’) or Crick Stone near Morvah. The site consists of four stones: one fallen, two upright, and the holed circular stone between these. Holed stones are widely believed to possess healing power and even though the Cornish mining population embraced Methodism, many pagan customs persisted. The Men an Tol was thought to cure rickets and children were passed through the hole six times. Its age is uncertain but it is usually assigned to the Bronze Age, between 2300-700 BCE. However, the stones could be the remains of a Neolithic tomb, as holed stones served as entrances to burial chambers. Marek was very impressed with this site. Marek inspects the Men an Tol or Crick Stone near Morvah, believed to possess healing powers 23 We then progressed on to Lanyon Quoit, a chambered Neolithic tomb believed to have been erected around 2500 BCE. A huge capstone, supported by three uprights, covers this impressive tomb. The chamber was originally a rectangular box with a long low platform at one end. There are the remains of side chambers (cists) at the other end.

Although it is believed to be the burial chamber of a long mound, Lanyon Marek beside Lanyon Quoit, a 2nd millennium burial chamber Quoit has many unusual features and it is possible that this site may have had a role as a mausoleum or cenotaph. The quoit collapsed during a storm in 1815 which damaged one of the upright stones. The local residents rebuilt the site in 1824 using the remaining three of the original four uprights. The resulting quoit is therefore considerably lower than the original. William Borlase notes in his Antiquities of Cornwall that in 1769 it was possible to ride a horse underneath the capstone. Today the site attracts many visitors, not least those who come to the place during solstices, equinoxes and full moons for a variety of ‘spiritual’ reasons. Marek commented that he would love to see the quoit in the moonlight and would have to return one day to realise this dream!

Taking the road towards , our next stop was Madron Holy Well and baptistery which is accessed down a pretty winding path that passes through a copse and over a couple of traditional Cornish stiles. The much-visited well is attributed to St Madern, and is reputed to have curative powers, the most quoted story being that of John Trelill, a cripple for 16 years, who washed in the water and was cured early in the C17th. The trees that grow near the simple circular stone- lined well are bedecked with multi-coloured rags or ‘clooties’, a custom once widespread in Celtic regions and still performed in parts of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and at Glastonbury. The venerative force of water, which played an important role in ancient ‘Celtic’ religion, is recognised in a folk customs connected with holy wells such as that of Madron, which even the strength of Methodism could not banish among Cornish mining communities. The cloot is a symbolic prayer for healing or in gratitude of a cure, or for a wish of some description. As the cloot disintegrates, so the prayer will take effect. Sharron ties her clootie on to a branch Sharron and Marek both took the opportunity to at Madron Holy Well tie clooties onto a tree.

24 Water runs from the well to the nearby ruined chapel where it fills a simple baptistery. During the C17th an enormous thorn tree's branches formed a leafy roof over the ancient chapel and local people used turf to repair a green bank by the altar which they called St Madern's Bed, which pilgrims used to sleep on as part of a ‘healing' cure. The chapel measures about 24 feet by 16 feet, is roofless and has an altar at the opposite end to the baptistery. There are simple granite seats down the sides and the place often contains ritual objects such corn dollies and candles left over from pagan Marek in contemplative mood in the ancient ceremonies. Offerings are left on the Baptistery near Madron Holy Well altar in the form of posies of flowers, fruit and nuts. The place has a distinct aura of peace and Marek enjoyed sitting quietly in the chapel disturbed only by the wind stirring the great branches of a nearby pine tree and the intermittent cries of swallows.

The whole area has recently been landscaped, sympathetically it has to be said, and made more accessible for all by Penwith District Council, which has a fine track record in heritage- related projects.

We next drove to Boskednan where Sharron wanted Marek to see the stone circle high on the moor close to Ding Dong Mine. Sharron was spatially challenged reading the OS Map (!!) and we ended up walking in the opposite direction from the circle, fortuitously as it happened, for we took the opportunity to visit Ding Dong’s Ishmael’s whim engine house that accommodated a 25-inch winding engine with an 8 foot stroke. The house has a well-preserved slot for the winding cage and flywheel and the outline of the boiler house is clearly visible on the north side of the Marek admires Ishmael’s engine house at Ding building. Dong Mine. The structure lacks gables, a feature on all Ding Dong engine houses

From Ishmael’s we walked across the meandering gorse and heather choked paths and found the stone circle which looked somewhat other worldly in the soft light of the setting sun. In the C18th there were 13 stones in the circle, but workings at the nearby Ding Dong Mine moved closer to the site eventually reaching it and disturbing it. In May 2004 a joint venture with Cornwall County Council, the Environment Department (Defra) and the Nine Maidens Commoners, three of the stones that had fallen were re-erected. Several apples and Stone circle on the moor above Boskednan in the early evening sunshine 25 other decomposing items of fruit at the foot of the stones betrayed the signs of recent pagan ceremonies. Marek was very impressed with this and all of the megalithic sites of Penwith.

We headed back towards Ding Dong Mine passing by what looked like a second stone circle which was the remains of a round barrow. Several of the stones standing here are quite tall, and although the resemblance to a stone circle is very strong, the stones are actually only the tall kerbs of the barrow.

Ding Dong Mine is undoubtedly an ancient mine, betrayed by the number of ‘old men’s workings’ which clearly show up on aerial Greenburrow Shaft pumping engine house, Ding Dong photographs. A nearby Mine watercourse was streamed for tin before the expansive phase of industrialisation in the C18th-C19th. Indeed, tin streaming has been going on in Penwith since pre-historic times as evidenced by the discovery of a spoon made from an alloy of tin and copper at Chysauster Village in Penwith. This site was occupied over a 400 year period between around 100 BCE and 300 CE, probably by the ‘Celtic’ Dumnonii tribe.

The present Ding Dong Mine is comprised of a number of smaller setts that came together in the C19th and covered an area about a mile long and half a mile wide. The late C18th was a period of experimentation in steam technology and it was at Ding Dong that an inverted 28- inch cylinder Bull engine was installed which infringed the Watt patent on the steam engine. Watt, who jealously guarded his patent rights, promptly sent his lawyers to the mine with an injunction that was posted on the engine house door and which stopped work. Richard Trevithick then altered Bull’s engine to exhaust to atmosphere which did not infringe the patent.

At its height, in the 1870s, Ding Dong had 5 beam engines and a workforce of over 270 people. An engine house for a 40-inch engine was constructed at Greenburrow Shaft in 1865 and it was to this engine house, bathed in the fading rays of the sun, that we made our way.

This engine house can be seen for miles around as it occupies such an elevated position (650 feet – 200 metres, above sea level) and was one of the earlier Sharron inspects the cylinder bedstone of the pumping engine houses to be engine house at Greenburrow Shaft that had been fouled by consolidated by a horse excrement! What a sacrilegious act!! Manpower Services Scheme in the late 1980s. The shaft, some 80 fathoms in depth, has been grilled and the

26 balance bob pit is well-preserved. Inside, the cylinder bedstone complete with 4 iron bolts is intact. Sharron was highly amused to discover that this was covered with horse excrement and several impromptu jokes were made concerning the efficacy of measuring the distance between the cylinder bolt holes!! Is this just a load of ****?!!

We made our way back to the car in the twilight and set off for the Tinner’s Arms at Zennor where our thirst was quenched with a pint. Upon leaving the pub Sharron drew Marek’s attention to the moon which was almost full. Remembering that Marek had expressed a desire to see Lanyon Quoit in the moonlight, Sharron offered to take him there so he could photograph it.

It was not long before both were climbing over the stile into the field where the quoit is located. It looked Lanyon Quoit in the moonlight – an unforgettable entirely different silhouetted in the experience for Marek moonlight and Marek was soon lying on the dew soaked grass with his camera on Sharron’s minute tripod! He was exhilarated by the site at night. A great day was rounded off with an Indian takeaway and several whiskies!!

Tuesday 8th August: South Crofty Mine, Poldark Mine Another very hot day beckoned as we piled into the car after a leisurely breakfast and set off for South Crofty Mine situated at Pool, mid-way between Camborne and Redruth. En route we had arranged to pick up Allen Buckley, a former South Crofty miner, author of a history of the mine and numerous other Cornish mining books. Sharron was a little late collecting him, prompting jokes about being late for her own funeral, followed by a general ribbing about female drivers which, being used to Buckley’s humour, she rebuffed as usual. Marek had cottoned on by now that the Cornish have a wicked sense of humour and can take it as well as dish it out!! South Crofty Mine is ancient, beginning life as a small sett called Penhellick Vean in the

Left: headframe on New Cooks Kitchen Shaft. Right: The ‘A’ Team? Kevin, Marek, Ainsley and mining historian and former South Crofty Miner, Allen Buckley 1590s. As it grew it gradually absorbed many smaller setts becoming South Wheal Crofty in 1854. South Crofty was initially worked for tin where the lodes outcropped at surface, but became a copper producer during the expansive phase of industrialisation in the C18th and

27 early C19th. The first really significant developments came in 1710 when Francis Bassett obtained a lease of Penhellick Vean and a drainage adit was begun. Over the next twenty years these shallow workings (less than 40 metres deep) produced copper of great value and made the Basset family a fortune.

From the 1860s onwards, tin was encountered below the copper lodes and copper production began to decline. In 1906 South Crofty Mine Ltd became the foundation of the modern mine. From the 1890s onwards the mine acquired other setts as the surrounding mines closed, including Tincroft & Carn Brea, North Roskear, South Roskear, New Cook's Kitchen Mine, and the mighty . In the C20th South Crofty was worked for tin, tungsten, and arsenic, but by the 1960s tin was the sole product. The workings eventually reached almost 3000 feet in depth, equalling Dolcoath, and were around 4.5 km in length, stretching from Centenary Street in Camborne to Barncoose near Redruth; over 40 lodes have been mined.

After almost 400 years of continuous working, South Crofty closed in 1998, an event that will remain forever etched in many a local person’s memory. Crofty was the last working mine in Cornwall and the last working tin mine in Europe. We explained to Marek that mining is inextricably linked to Cornish identity, particularly in the twin mining towns of Camborne and Redruth where many miners lived. The pain caused by the closure of Crofty was eloquently captured by some poignant graffiti on the wall outside the gates of the mine:

Baseresult Ltd. have plans to reopen the mine ‘Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish and development work is on-going. Allen chats lads are miners too. But when the fish to one of the miners and tin are gone, what are the Cornish boys to do?’

South Crofty still possesses significant ore reserves and has been reopened (as of September 2001) by Baseresult Ltd. Baseresult intend to restart it as a working mine and will hopefully resume tin production within the near future. The majority of local people support the re- opening of the mine, but whether this will go ahead is dependent on many factors, not least the plans that CPR Regeneration have for the wider Pool area.

Meanwhile, a section of the workings above adit, on North Tincroft Lode, have (as of October 2003) been opened for Allen shows the boys how to tip a wagon. Not tourist visits with access from the as easy as you might think! And this one was Tuckingmill Decline and it was this tour empty! that we intended to take Marek on. We arrived at the mine offices where we met Kevin Baker and changed into our troglodyte’s garb once more!

We were driven to the entrance of the Tuckingmill Decline past New Cooks Kitchen Shaft with its iconic headframe that can be seen for miles around. This and was the main shaft until the closure of mining operations in 1998. We then passed the most well known shaft on the site,

28 Examples of large stulls. Kevin and Marek in the background Cooks Kitchen, which is thought to have been opened in about 1740. The only remains of this mine are the two relict engine houses on the southern part of the site. New Cooks Kitchen Shaft started to be sunk in 1907. Its current Allen explains the geology of the mine configuration was constructed in 1988 and allowed for man-riding and ore-winding to be carried out at the same time due to it having separate winding gears. The winding gear equipment is still in place in its original enclosures.

The group made its way to the entrance of the Tuckingmill decline. This 5m by 3m inclined tunnel was excavated during the mid 1980s and was intended to be the main mine access. The upper sections which pass through poor ground close to surface contain steel arches for support. 50m down from the entrance on the right-hand side is the connection to Eastern Valley Shaft which was part of the famous Dolcoath Mine. The decline was driven approximately 600m from surface and in 1988 all work stopped, only the top 250m is accessible above the water level. At a point 200m from the entrance access has been gained to the series of parallel stopes which belong to the North Tincroft Lode. Parts of these are ancient dating from at least the late C17th, but the last major period of working dates from the early 1900s to the 1940s. Traditional open shrink stoping has been employed and pillars left for support, this has given rise to some very large stopes.

Signs of copper sulphate staining were evident on the walls in places, remains of boarded up Cousin Jack ore chutes and good examples of stulls and pigsties were shown to Marek as we progressed through the workings. On coming to grass the iconic headframe on New Cooks Kitchen Shaft, the large round storage silos, constructed late in the 1960s when the mill underwent expansion (the only examples of their type in Cornwall), and the processing plant betrayed South Crofty’s recent closure. We then visited the generator house and the winding house before we scrubbed up and made for Piece Pub where we quenched our thirst with a few pints and satisfied our hunger with a Cornish pasty. Allen entertained us with a number of amusing stories about his life as a working miner.

Would you trust this woman to operate the winder?!!!!

29 Leaving the pub, we headed for parish and Poldark Mine. Poldark derives its name from the popular Cornwall-based BBC television drama series of the 1970s which featured an C18th Cornish mine in many of its storylines.

Situated in the valley of the some two miles from , Poldark is centred on the C18th underground workings of Wheal Roots and later Wendron Consols which are accessed by a short drive into the hillside from the valley Sharron enjoying one of Allen’s ‘yarns’ at Piece bottom. The Wheal Roots Lode, Pub which was discovered around 1720, was first worked for tin by streamers in the nearby River Cober itself but documentary evidence in the Duchy Record Office indicates that a stamping mill was in operation at the Poldark site much earlier (before 1493) when John Trenere held a lease for the stamps and watercourses in Lower Trenerel. The chance discovery of a granite mortar outcrop, used to crush and liberate tin ore from gangue minerals, in the site of the main car park in 2000, provides a strong indication that the banks of the Cober were a favoured site for tin extraction/dressing from prehistoric times. Tin production at Wheal Roots continued Richard shows Marek the ancient mortar under various ownerships and outcrop discovered in the mine car park management and the sett was eventually acquired by the adventurers of Wendron Consols in 1854 and subsequently by Great Wheal Lovell. In 1885, the site was converted into a dairy – due no doubt to the ready water supply and in-situ water wheel – and this operation continued until 1970. The site first opened as a visitor attraction in 1972 as Wendron Forge, later being known as Halfpenny Park, and comprised a collection of steam traction and stationary engines. The latter were operated by compressed air instead of steam and the growing number on site required ever greater compressor capacity. This created more noise and, to alleviate this problem, it was decided to cut a chamber into the hillside to house the machinery and contain the sound. Purely by chance, this activity broke into the shallow workings of Wheal Roots giving rise to the site’s future as a mining heritage attraction. At surface Poldark is dominated by an imposing beam pumping engine which formerly worked within the China clay district at Greensplatt, near St Austell. The engine was subsequently dismantled and transferred to the site and plans are being made to refurbish the machinery and get the beam in motion once more. The Greensplatt pumping engine

30 Kevin Baker arrived with his wife Chris and son Kai, and after an informal discussion with the Managing Director of Poldark and fellow Europamines member Richard Williams and the site’s Marketing Director Pam Melville, the group were conducted on an interesting tour of the mine’s museum which includes impressive examples of early mining machinery and rock blasting artefacts. Poldark also holds much of the collection of the former Holman’s Museum and this includes the first rock drill used in a Cornish mine and the competition-winning rock drill which out-performed all others in a Meet Richard’s new friends! He has South African contest in March 1907. collected an interesting number of mining artefacts, including miner’s uniforms and Richard has also collected an unusual regalia from Poland which interested Marek number of artefacts from mining areas overseas, particularly Poland, which include a Polish miner’s uniform complete with feathered hat, medals and ceremonial swords. These are displayed in an area which prominently displays the Europamines’ logo.

An extensive tour of the underground workings followed including a look at the levels and narrow stopes on the Wheal Roots Lode. Poldark lies in an area of particularly distinctive geology and Marek and Richard were found to be very much in their element!

The group underground with Richard in Wheal Roots

Confessions of a mine site owner! Sharron The entrance to the mine workings and Marek are treated to one of Richard’s many amusing stories! After enjoying the underground tour, we were invited for afternoon tea with Richard and Pam, and the group later retreated to the New Inn at Wendron. There we were met by site manager Chris, and Marta, who is Elzbieta Szumska’s daughter from the Zloty Stok gold mine in Poland, who is currently working at Poldark. Marek had almost forgotten how to speak Polish by this time!

31 An interesting day was rounded off with copious amounts of whiskey and hilarity ensued: Sharron and Ainsley introduced Marek to some of the more colourful and pithier Cornish sayings, which had him in fits of laughter!!

Richard and Pam treated us to dinner at the New Inn, Wendron

Wednesday 9th August: Lanner, Gwennap Pit Busveal, St Day, St Michael’s Mount, St Ives Another hot and sunny day dawned and after Ainsley had joined us for breakfast we made for the Gwennap mining area around St Day. Copper was undeniably Gwennap’s chief mineral but tin had been exploited since prehistoric times, won from stream-beds where it had been washed down from outcropping lodes in the surrounding hillsides. Tin bounders later worked the tin lodes where they appeared at surface and by the 1700s mines such as Poldice were prolific producers. However, deep lode mining could not truly develop until the construction of the Great County Adit, begun in 1748, and the development of powerful steam engines capable of draining mines at greater depths. The existence of huge copper reserves which coincided with an increase in national demand for this metal meant that Gwennap attracted many of the top scientists and engineers of the day who applied themselves to the development of steam technology. Gwennap was one of the earliest regions in Britain to participate in the industrial revolution and by the early 1800s was the world’s undisputed ‘Copper Kingdom’. The Consolidated Mines alone yielded almost 300,000 tons of copper from 1819-1840, which sold for over £2 million.

Rapid industrialisation led to the development of rows and terraces of miner’s cottages as the availability of land for smallholdings, usually around 5 acres in size, diminished. New communities such as Lanner and Carharrack mushroomed close to the mines which employed many thousands of men, women and children. Whilst passing through Lanner, the village where Sharron used to live, she noticed a former neighbour’s door was open and stopped to say hello. Marek was invited in to have morning tea in what has to be one of the most Sharron and Marek beside the Cornish range authentic Cornish miner’s cottages left in the village, a one bedroom property complete with fully functional Cornish range owned by Geoffery Olds. These old stoves were once common in Cornish properties but have largely disappeared.

32 Gwennap is also the spiritual home of Cornish Methodism and we made our way to Gwennap Pit at Busveal, most likely a ‘coffin’ - an old tin mine working - where John Wesley (1703-1791) is reputed to have preached 18 times during his 31 visits to Cornwall. The ‘natural amphitheatre’ as Wesley described it was remodelled in 1806; the track that passed through it was rerouted to the north and additional stone seats created. Each Whit Monday a service is held at Gwennap Pit that formerly drew thousands of people from miles around who would then make their way to the Whitsun fair Sharron explains the development and significance at nearby Redruth town. The pit has of Gwennap Pit to Marek enormous significance for Methodists worldwide and for Sharron, for her family have close connections with it.

Her maternal ancestors lived in the cottage behind the chapel where they worshipped and were for a time in the early twentieth century, caretakers of the chapel and pit. Sharron has Edwardian photographs of the congregation of Busveal Chapel celebrating their annual Sunday school anniversary at the pit.

We next visited the old market town of St Day which grew in importance in the medieval period as it was the site of a shrine to St They or Day that was on The simple interior of Busveal Wesleyan the pilgrim’s route that led to St Chapel Michael’s Mount. This was destroyed during the Reformation and the town was without a church for almost 300 years. To celebrate England’s victory at Waterloo, the Million Fund was set up by parliament to improve church provision and a grant of £4,000 (followed by a later grant of £2,000) was made for new churches in St Day and nearby Chacewater. Built in 1826, the church of the Holy Trinity could seat over 2,000 people reflecting the large population swollen by mining success.

In 1835 St Day split from Gwennap to become a parish in its own right. St Day was once a thriving town where most of the staples of life could be purchased. A thriving covered market, built in 1798, sold fish, meat and vegetables and the town boasted a granite clock tower, recently restored. The town was hard hit by mining decline and its population plummeted in the late C19th as emigration took it toll. Gwennap’s population fell from its zenith of over 10,000 in 1841 to a mere 5,476 in 1911. The depression would have been far St Day’s town clock and worse had it not been for the remittances that came surrounding area has benefited back to maintain some of the shops and businesses, from urban regeneration money

33 but the writing was clearly on the wall. The First World War coupled with the depression of the 1930s saw the closure of many of the shops and St Day has been a post-industrial area ever since, afflicted by dereliction and dilapidation. Due to the considerable efforts of the Mining Villages Regeneration Project, over a million pounds have been spent in St Day and neighbouring communities, Lanner and Carharrack, including derelict land reclamation, environmental improvements, and provision of new amenity and visitor attractions. We next visited the Church of the Holy Trinity where many of Sharron’s maternal ancestors are buried in the surrounding graveyard. The church was closed in 1956 due to concerns about the strength of the tower, but has undergone restoration since 1999 and now houses an interpretation centre. Unfortunately, this was closed on the day of our visit. St Day is once more a community on the move and has clearly benefited from urban regeneration.

Leaving the Gwennap mining area we headed for St Michael’s Mount via the Tregonning mining district to avoid the ‘emmets’ (people from ‘up the country’) who had caused traffic jams on the A30, stopping off at the Old Shire Inn for a leisurely lunch. St Michael’s Mount is named Carrack Looz en Cooz - the grey rock in the wood - and this may represent a folk memory of a time before Mount's Bay was flooded. The Mount is today connected to the mainland by a causeway which is traversable at low tide only and is believed by some to be the Mictis of Timaeus, mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, and the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus. Both men had access to the now lost texts of the ancient Greek Geographer Pytheas who visited the Island in the 4th Century BC. It was from Ictis that Cornish tin was exported to the Greek trading communities in the Mediterranean.

St Micheal’s Mount has a long and interesting history: it may have been held by a religious body in the time of Edward the Confessor and given by Robert, Count of Mortain to the Norman abbey of Mont Saint Michel. It was a priory of that abbey until the dissolution of the alien houses by Henry V, when it was given to the abbess and Convent of Syon at Isleworth, Middlesex. It was a resort of pilgrims, whose devotions were encouraged by an indulgence granted by Pope Gregory in the View of St Michael’s Mount from C11th. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Mount was given to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, by whose son it was sold to Sir Francis Basset. During the Civil War, Sir Arthur Basset, brother of Sir Francis, held the Mount against the parliament until July 1646. The Mount was sold in 1659 to Colonel John St Aubyn. Colonel St Aubyn's descendant Lord St Levan now lives there and the Mount and its castle is in the care of the National Trust.

We took the boat across to the Mount as the tide was in and the causeway submerged. We climbed the steep pathway to the castle, passing by the Giant Cormoran’s heart (a stone shaped thus) en route. Cormoran was supposed to have been slain by a boy called Jack, as a punishment for stealing livestock from the mainland. Marek enjoyed his tour through the castle and the wonderful views of the mainland offered from its turrets. Returning to Marazion, we headed back to Redruth to freshen up before going to St Ives to dine later that evening. A Leffe beer at the Hub was followed by a superb meal at Pepper’s Restaurant.

Thursday10thAugust: Falmouth

This was Marek’s last day in Cornwall and we wanted him to have a leisurely time before heading back to Stansted. After breakfast we drove to Falmouth, once a thriving port where

34 naval ships put in ‘for orders’ and former home of the Packet fleet that operated from 1689 to 1851. The news of Britain's victory (and Admiral Nelson's death) at Trafalgar was landed here from the schooner Pickle and taken to London by stagecoach. Falmouth was also the port of embarkation of thousands of Cornish mining migrants who took ship to the New World in the 1820s, enticed to do so by high wages, and many thousands of tonnes of mining machinery and equipment manufactured in Cornwall’s great foundries were dispatched from this port.

Falmouth was formerly known in Cornish as Pen-y-cwm-cuic, which was corrupted to ‘Pennycomequick’ and was founded by Sir John Killigrew in 1613. Built on a ria (flooded valley) it forms the third largest natural harbour in the world (behind Sydney and Rio de Janeiro). It is also famous for being the start or finish point of various round-the-world record-breaking voyages, such as those of Sir Francis Chichester and Dame Ellen MacArthur. Although Falmouth's maritime activity has much declined from its heyday, the docks are still a major contributor to the town's economy and the Falmouth Docks bunkering of vessels and the transfer of cargoes keep the port's facilities busy. Falmouth is also becoming popular with cruise ship operators.

After a long lunch at the Blue Bar we headed to the Prince’s Wharf to take a boat trip up the so Marek could see Pendennis and ’ castles, constructed by Henry VIII in the C16th to defend Carrick Roads. During the English Civil War, Pendennis Castle was the second to last fort to surrender to the Parliamentarians.

Marek greatly enjoyed the boat ride, underling the fact that Cornwall and its people have been as much shaped by their maritime as mining Pendennis Castle, built by Henry VIII history.

We returned to Redruth to eat an early dinner and then to take Marek back to Newquay Airport. However, we had not been at home to hear the news that there had been a foiled attack by Islamic extremists using liquid explosives, and as a consequence all flights over British airspace had been suspended. Arriving at Newquay International we discovered that Marek’s flight had been cancelled. He had to take a train from to London Paddington before making his way by train to Stansted for his flight to Wroclaw the next day. Not quite the exit from ‘paradise’ he had in mind, but it was very sad to see him waving goodbye from the train window as it pulled out of Truro Station in the darkness. We are sure that ‘John Marek’, honorary Cornishman, will return to Cornwall at the first opportunity!

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