The Beacon Clayworkillgs ­ Two Forgotten Pits

John Tonkin

Parish: Roche Mineral Lord: Viscount Falmouth Ordnance Survey Sheets, 1/2500: xxxiii-14 (1880 & 1905) or SW9662-9762 (1977) Belovely Pit: was working by 1856 & the equipment was sold off in 1877 @ N.G. co-ords: 196725E, 062700 N. BeJowda Pit: was looked at in 1906, started by 1912 & closed in 1924 @ N.G. co-ords: 196750E, 062600 N.

Introduction: In the years before the Second World War, the older people in the district used to call the little hamlet that nestles under Belowda Beacon, just where the ground begins to rise off the towards the summit, "Belovely village." Originally this was a mining settlement sited mid-way along the wide, north-dipping, stanniferous elvan which outcrops from Brynn Mine in the East to Old Castle-an-Dinas and Black Acre. It has been traced for over three miles and was notable for yielding pseudomorphs of cassiterite after felspar and for the amount of minute topazes found in the stamped sand. On the southern flank, but near the crest of the ridge, still stands the beam engine house belonging to Belowda Beacon Mine. Looking for tin, this explored a couple of quartz­ lodes that carried some cassiterite, a little wolfram and were famous for yielding some fine pseudomorphs of both cassiterite and tourmaline after felspar. Much of the schorl was extremely course. The country rock is mostly granite, none of which could be described as "fresh". The area was scratched over, off and on, for many years, notably by the East Mining Association between 1833 and 1842 1 mostly by open cuts. The tin boom of the early 1870s stimulated the first vigorous mining but, by the time that Belowda got going in 1872, the best was over. Active mining occurred intermittently between 1872 and 1902. 2 Dines remarked that the workings did not exceed 200ft. in depth which suggests that they ceased sinking when they started to get heavy inflows of water from the killas under the Goss Moor. A feeble attempt to restart the property occurred between 1909 and mid-1911, the significance of this being that the company involved was known as "The Belowda Tin & China Clay Mines Co." of which, more later. 3 Just over the brow from the old beam engine house, on the eastern (right hand) side of the road to Tregonetha, lie the china clay workings. All that remains today are two little water-filled bottoms, some low tramming burrows and the gaunt shell of the main

2 building of the last working with slight industrial debris scattered close to it. To avoid confusion between the two clay pits, it is proposed to reserve the use of the name Belovely Clayworks for the northern bottoms and to call the southern pit, Belowda. Although the names seem to have been somewhat interchangeable, this complies most closely to the general usage.

Belovely China Clay-works, the 19th Century working Very little has been published concerning the earliest workings for china clay on Belowda Beacon, so that an attempt is here made to extract the maximum amount of information from what is available. According to Josh Billings, "It ain't what you don't know that makes you a fool; 'tis what you do know, that ain't so." Josh was probably right, and that means that attempting to make five from two and two is fraught with danger for any researcher. It will be important to remember exactly what is recorded and what is deduced. Belovely gets mentioned in Hunt's annual "Mineral Statistics" a number of times; the Royal Cornwall Gazette notices it; it is recorded on the appropriate Ordnance Survey sheets and other sources are being sought. Mineral Statistics first notices individual china clay works in its 1858 volume. Belovely appears in the listing with Viscount Falmouth as the freeholder and Collins & Co., as the tenant, producing a "bleaching" grade of clay at an estimated production rate of 600t.p.a.; '' is recorded under the heading of "nearest railway station or port... Clayworks are then ignored until the 1868 issue of the Statistics, but they are noticed more or less every year thereafter. Belovely is still there, appearing in the listings from 1868 through to 1874 but not for any subsequent year. No production figures are quoted and the"station or port" becomes Par with the same mineral lord and tenant throughout. In 1877 the Royal Cornwall Gazette carried a notice of the pending auction of materials on "Belowda Clay Works, Roche, Cornwall." (Actually the Belovely operation).4 One authority on clayworks history has claimed that J.H. Collins opened Belovely in 1856 and that 600 tons was his best annual production. Imperfect kaolinization, resulting in a high mica content, caused him to abandon it in 1865. At least some of this requires amendment. 5 The vendors in 1877 hoped to sell the works as a going concern and with its last reporting to the government record keepers for the year 1874, it seems probable that it ceased working during, or just before, 1876 with, perhaps, twenty years of productive life. Such a figure would not be at odd's with the present "hole in the downs" left behind. The survey carried out by the Ordnance Survey team in 1880, although the pit is not marked as "disused," could be reconciled with the foregoing. Most of the remains of the working of Belovely have been obliterated by the dumps from the 20th century enterprise or by recent land reclamation by local farmers. However, by combining the survey record with site details and interviews, much can be deduced concerning this first working for china clay on Belowda Beacon. It is highly likely that the kaolin potential of the area was first realized as a result of the opening up of the ground in the search for, and exploitation of, the local tin and wolfram deposits. Once this potential had been recognized, the most productive location and its extent would have been delineated by "pitting for clay." Pits up to about 4ft. square, would be sunk through the overburden and into the kaolinized granite below. Some would not have gone more than a fathom or two into the clay ground; just sufficient to establish

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Ud -"'QMQ138 \ its pre~ence and to provide samples for the estimation of probable recovery rates and to show suitability to satisfy potential markets. Others would have been sunk for perhaps five, ten or even twenty fathoms to ensure continuity in depth. From the configuration of the abandoned workings in the area, it would appear that an elongated run ot ground, a couple of hundred feet wide, at least 600ft. long and oriented about north-south, was of commercial potential. The next operation would have been to uncover enough clay ground to allow production to start. With the hillside falling to the north, a start was made at the northern end of the interesting ground with a view to working what the 'old men' termed a "lobby," into the hillside. With the deposit having been completely worked out to the edge of the stripped area, and the pit sides having had a century in which to weather, overburden depth is not now readily apparent but, almost certainly, it would not have exceeded two or three feet. Any peat that might have accumulated on the Beacon in prehistoric times would have been used for fuel centuries before Messrs Collins & Co. arrived on the scene. Subsequently, turf would have been cut regularly from the area, this accounting for the extremely thin soils on all the local downs. (6) (7) In the early years, waste was trammed out to the north but, eventually, a small dump was pulled out on the south east corner. Looking at the scant evidence that survives, this is likely to have been burden from the south end. At this site, water for washing the matrix is likely to have been one of the company's most pressing problems. The abandoned pit and dumps are hemmed-in tightly by cultivated land, leaving the 1880 O.S. map as the chief clue to how the property was worked. Some run-off appears to have been impounded to the south of the pit with residues apparently beached about 300 yards to the west of the workings; with only 13 fathoms of flat roofs offered in the closing sale, it seems unlikely that any water was recovered from that source. Water decanted from the kiln tanks would have been available and some water might have been available from mining activity a couple of hundred yards to the south, but this clay working mostly preceeded significant mining effort as far as is known. Given the less than ample water supply, washing of matrix was almost certainly seasonal, with every likelihood that the men that broke clay in the bottoms also dried clay and shipped it as the necessity arose. On the south east rim of the pit there is some slight indication that the matrix was wet mined in the traditional manner at this pit. Although this is by no means certain, it seems to be most likely. The pit, after its abandonment, remained dry so that the pumping required was only to lift the wash to the circle-head of the micas. Pumping and winding was accomplished by a 12" horizontal engine steamed off a single boiler. The sweep rod and balance bob activated an 8" plunger lift with only thirteen fathoms of flat rods being required. No shaft is known, so the pit-work might have been rigged down the side of the bottoms. (4) The sand would have been trapped back in a ground sand pit in the bottoms and the desanded wash delivered to a set of mica drags about 35 metres long and divided into four tandem runs. These would have been of wooden construction probably in a stone-built surround. Scaled off the O.S. sheet at about 2 metres wide at the feed end and 4 metres wide for the final run, there might have been six parallel channels in the first run, then eight, ten, and twelve in the final run. Each run of drags would have been about 28ft. long with a cross-channel and plug(s) after each run to permit of the disposal of the residues. Guessing from the absence of anything that could be construed as residue re-treatment

5 facilities, the mica residues from the first two runs might have been shyvered and tapped off into a catch pit located to the south and, from there, run off with minimal water to be impounded on the downs to the west. Meanwhile. the better residues. from the last two run of drags, might have gone north into sun pans preparitory to air drying.(8) Such a group of a dozen square or rectangular pans with sides ranging from 25 to 50ft in length are known to have existed over the parish boundary in the crook of the road to Kernick, where it turns from east to due north. Streaks of sand and clay and stone-lined pans were

discovered there recently when that corner was broken to cultivation. (9) The air dry was about 30ft wide by nearly 100ft long. This would have been a simple pitched roof, supported on pillars covering shelving upon which lumps of semi-dried clay from the sun pans would complete their drying process. 1be better clay was dried in a pan-kiln oriented along the contours just to the west of the north end of the pit and not far from the micas. It was about 30ft wide by just over 100ft long, with the stack off-set to the west by a further 100ft; obviously they had allowed for increasing production. which never materialized. The fire shed was 24x28ft and the pan was 75/80ft long and. probably. 9ft in width. The three kiln tanks, offset somewhat from the kiln. were 55ft long and varied from 27 to 33ft in width. On the plan, it has all the signs of being a classic, small wagon-tank pan-kiln and. if it dates from the start of this works, it was a very early example. The quarries, only 300 yards to the west, probably supplied all the stone for the construction. The earliest record (that for 1858) gives Newquay as the port of shipment and that may mean that only the sun pans and air dry near SW 966 630 were producing and carting to the rail-head at Halloon. At least from 1868, production was shipped through Par and must have been carted to Bugle Station for forwarding; the line was not extended to Holywell (called Victoria from 1879 and Roche only after Nov., 1904) until 1874 just as Belovely Clay-works was nearing the end of its life. Perhaps the story of this little pit was not quite over.

Belowda China Clay-works, the 20th Century working 1909-1912 Belowda Tin & China Clay Mines Local tradition states the Belowda China Cay works started in 1906(10) although the company usually credited with starting it was not registered until 1912. However the earlier date might represent the earliest reawakening of interest in clay on the Beacon since a company called Belowda Tin & China Clay Mines is recorded as producing tin and wolfram there from 1909 to 1912(3) and, from its title, the company may have at least prospected for china clay. The present outline of Belovely Pit is similar to that shown on the 1905 revision of the Ordnance Survey map. However. an incline has been cut eastwards down into the Southern end and there appears to be a deepening of that end by five or ten feet. It is not clear whether this alteration was the result of work by this company or as the result of work carried out after 1912 to bring the old bottoms into use as a water-reserve.

1912-1924 The Standardized China Clay Co. Locally this operation was known as Beacon Clayworks (one of half a dozen so named). Although quite a lot of detail is known about its flowsheet and working, there is also still much muddle and mystery involved. A number of circumstances combined to contribute

6 The plant building peeping over the most recent dwnps, as seen from the north east comer of Belowda bottoms (1993). to this state of affairs. The works were both physically isolated from the main clay-working areas and drew much of the labour force from Tregonetha, an area which provided very few men to the main stream clay labour force. The operating company was foreign and secretive. The equipment and processes were nearly alI novel, causing the works gossip in the community to be little understood. The larger, established, clay companies and their personnel always tended to have the attitudes that anything that they hadn't invented, or at least didn't use, couldn't possibly be efficacious or worthy of interest. Further confusion persists because a number of processes were tried and abandoned. The deposit itself appears not to be the most amenable to treatment to produce a quality product, exhibiting a high content of fine mica. Many of the processes were "before their time" having been adopted, many years later, on a much wider scale. Among these were centrifuging, pugging, band-drying, tunnel kilns, the use of paper sacks, the heavy use of electric power, and chemical refining. Even the building in which the plant was housed is believed to have been a first for Cornwall. The operator, the Standardized China Clay Co., was established in order to acquire the Gee Patents on a centrifugal separator as well as the china clay property at Belowda with the avowed intention of making a commercial profit while concurrently demonstrating the advantages of the technology. They had the property examined by engineers, the clay assessed as to its suitability for the market and a favourable written report upon the performance of the Gee machine. The capital of the Company was £75,000 divided into 65,000 cumulative participating 7% preference shares and 10,000 ordinary shares. The vendors received 20,000 preference shares, all the ordinary shares and £25,000 in cash.

11 The remaining £20,000 was required for working capital. (II) Viscount Falmouth was the mineral lord. A new start'was made about a hundred yards to the south of the old Belovely bottoms; now there is just one hundred feet of unworked ground separating the two workings. The method chosen to win the clay was also radically different; the matrix was mined dry and slurried at the plant-site, not in the pit. Although the choice of dry mining suggests that an assured water supply was still a problem, as long as the mica drags were used to accomplish any part of the refining process, the wash would need to be quite dilute ­ not above say 1.060 density and, preferably, below 1.030, at the imput end. This pit, as it deepened, was accessed by ladders, the matrix being raised by blondin. There were two wooden pylons, each served by a winding drum worked in balance, one up and one down, but, after the Great War, only one was in general use. These pylons were bolted onto concrete bases and corresponding tail anchor towers were provided. The main carrying rope was 2 V2" or 3" and the load-hoisting rope was about I" in diameter. The set-up was that each carrying rope crossed the pit, sloping down from its blondin tower and acting as a mono-rail. Upon each rope, ran a two-wheeled truck, the blondin block. A sliding stop-block could be positioned anywhere along the carrying rope by means ofteagles (or windlasses). Once the blondin-block had run down the slope of the carrying rope to the stop, any further paying out of the hoisting rope allowed the load to drop away from under the now stationary block and descend into the bottoms. Winding in the hoisting rope reversed the process; capturing the block at the tower allowed the load to be landed. (12) (13) The system allowed the hoisting bucket to be dropped at any point along the line of its carrying rope and the matrix was required to be brought to such a point. The matrix was dug with dubbers and· shovels and, from old photographs, it appears that temporary corrugated iron shelters were rigged to protect the diggers from the worst of the weather. Such snaps suggest that in the early days matrix was trammed under the stop and hoisted in the wagon-butt which was dumped by inverting it but, later, a 5cwt capacity iron skip, with a sloping bottom and spring-loaded discharge door, was in use. The matrix was dumped into a round bin about 20ft in diameter and 3ft deep at the edge, with a dished bottom. In this bin a "millstone" revolved, the matrix going down a hole in its centre to be roughly particulated. This seemed to be such an unlikely method of accomplishing this process that further questioning confirmed that the machine was not an edge-runner, nor was it an arrastra type, but' 'very similar to a millstone at a corn mill." This tends to confirm that the matrix was not very productive of clay: as the Cornish used to say, it was "branny.' '(14) This surge-bin disintegrator discharged into what can best be described as a tube-mill. A very long narrow iron tube, revolving round its almost horizontal axis was supplied with wash water and fitted with some sort of lifting arrangement to move the feed forward. It sloped such that dryish course sand and stones discharged from the far end while the desanded slurry flowed out of the same end as the matrix entered. This blunged product, containing much fine sand and mica, went directly to the drags. (15) The"circle head" of the micas was rectangular with a sloping bottom feeding the four sand drags which preceeded the micas proper. About 14' x 5', it could be trapped up to an average depth of about 6", the coarsest material being landed out by intermittent shovelling. The four sand drags, each 3ft wide, 15" deep and 9ft long, discharged residue to an underpipe to be leated away. The desanded wash now entered a set of wooden mica drags. There were three 30ft runs in tandem divided apparently into only four, unusually

12 wide channels giving an overall width of about 14ft. (16) Just a few years ago, all this area was broken to cultivation and this part of the flow-sheet was swept away. The sand and mica residues thus separated were dewatered and trammed, together with the trommel sand, northwards onto flat-topped burrows which took advantage of the fall of the ground. Certainly micaceous residues can be seen on the lower tips lying just west of the Belovely bottoms and the heavy growth on the main burrow further west suggests that this too contains a lot of fines. This probably explains why there is no history of river pollution or of a mica dam in the area and why the tips have not been reused for building purposes. The mica-refined raw wash passed to one of three circular conditioning pits built of Cornish concrete (i.e. mass concrete, poured between shuttering, with many "plums" of stent dropped in). These round pits varied between 20 and 24ft in diameter, were 4 to 6ft deep at the periphery and 8 or 9ft deep at the central plug hole outlet. Here water was decanted by the rim overflow method, raising the density of the slurry from the range 3 to 5% solids (1.019 to 1.032 density as measured by hydrometer) to 10 to 15% (1.066 to 1.103) this being the density range at which the Gee centrifuge was said to show the greatest economic advantage. From these pits the flow moved into the plant building itself. The roofless ruin, standing gaunt, with its empty eyesockets of window-holes gives the impression of having been built fifty years later than its pre-World War I construction date. A large L-shaped building, with its 108ft long-axis paralleling the B3274 public road, stands grey and bold; the truncated foot, 56ft long, was occupied by the various prime­ movers. The walls stand about 24ft high. A steel girder framework was erected using 8"x6" I-beams which were covered with a monolithic skim of Cornish concrete giving walls of 14/15" thickness. It seems highly likely that the "plums" that went into the mass concrete were robbed from the 19th century buildings erected by Collins & Co. Recently an effort was made to salvage some of the RSJs to cantilever a floor in a new dwelling; however, the "old men" did their job too well and, it is said, the would-be recycler decided, after removing one, that it would be cheaper to buy new. OO It has been claimed ) that the building was put up in 1908, but 1912 seems to be a more likely date for its erection by the Standardized Clay Co. (7) I The foot of the L consisted of a split-level room almost 54x26ft with the western half, raised above the eastern end, finished with a terra-cotta tiled floor and furnished with engine mountings. The mezzanine floor was where the oil engines and dynamo sets were sited. One engine was a Bollinder four-cylinder two-stroke, direct coupled to its generator;(18)(19) the other was a Petter, also direct coupled. In the well floor of this section of the building, the gas plant was housed. It consisted of a Crossley, open hearth, suction gas generator operated with a fan in the system between the gas generator and the burners to give the suction.('5) There are rumours that, originally, there had been a gas engine installation here as well as the gas producer and that the two blondin drums had been worked by belts from that unit, however, after the Great War, it seems that everything was DC electrically driven and that the gas producer unit was all that was to be seen. Now, all that is to be seen is a pit in the floor. The last blondin skip carried about a ton of matrix and picking it off the pit floor made the prime mover' 'cuff a bit.. , There was a tank out in the downs into which the oil engine exhausted and, during one of these "cuffing sessions," the fuel (thought to have been diesel at that time) which used to get through into the exhaust system, ignited and backfired.

13 The power of the flash-back broke up all the concrete flooring and the castings right back to the engine itself and left the works entirely without power. They shut down and laid off most of their men until repairs could be effected. (15) There was a second storey in this part of the building, but the use to which it was put has not been ascertained. It was a mystery to the general labour force and might have acted as an office, laboratory and/or store, or it might have contained the Board-Room of the Company. There are problems in relating a straight forward, coherent and easily understood account of the workings at Belowda. The plant was experimental and the flowsheet changed from time to time. The labour force was informed only on a "need to know" basis and actually arriving at all the facts is difficult, if not impossible. Some topics will need to be broached more than once to complete a picture. Service water was lifted from the old Belovely bottoms by means of an electrically driven, three-throw, ram pump to a metal header tank, of about 5,000 gallons capacity, located on the durns still to be seen on the outside of the south wall of the main building. The feed-stock, roughly refined through the micas and conditioned in the pits, was delivered by centrifugal pump to four wooden vats perched high on girders over the long leg of the L-shaped building in such a position that they could feed the four "separators" by gravity, one vat for each centrifuge. (15) A garage cum workshop was located in the angle between the two main wings of the building. The large room that occupied the "shank of the L" was 25ft wide by nearly 80ft long. Down the full length of the eastern side ran a 3V2ft deep, 7V:zft wide trench. Up on the main floor level, and running down the centre-line of the building on 8ft centres, were a series of four 5ft diameter holes connected underneath by a 4Y2ft wide tunnel, 3ft high('6) All this still can be seen on site. Over each of the four holes stood a Gee separator. Estimating from a photograph, the rotating portion of the Belowda machines would appear to be about 6ft high; a little over 5ft in diameter at the bottom tapering to about 3ft at the top. (Had they been installed during the 1980s, they would have been nicknamed "Daleks" for sure). The units were belt driven by electric motors, shared one between two separators. They were said to revolve at about 1,500 rpm but, if the 100 to 200 ft per second peripheral speed quoted in the technical press is correct, (20) then 750 rpm is more likely to be correct. They were reported to have been made in Scotland and were of a type used there in the sugar refineries. Certainly a Scotsman came down and installed them. Each separator was made up of six plates, mounted vertically, which together completed the periphery of a circle. The machines were fed from the top and, originally, there was some difficulty with feed splash-back, however, this was overcome by the use of a fluted brass nozzle through which the feed was introduced. The machines were started up and fed continuously for half an hour, the discarded water running out of holes in the bottom of the casting. After a thirty minute run, the machine would be shut down and opened so that the six individual plates could be dismantled. If the feed stock had been of good density, a 2" to 2 V:z" thick cake, very like a filter press cake in appearance, would have been built up all over the plate. The best clay would be at the bottom of each section and the rougher grade at the top. (21)(22) The cake was stripped off with a little wooden shyver like a narrow paint-scrape. Hot water from the cooling water system of the big engine

14 was used to wash the plates in a trough prior to reassembling them in readiness for the next run. (15) The portion of each panel carrying the coarser clay was scraped off and treated quite separately from the premium cake. At least during the 1920-22 period, the rougher grade from the upper, narrower diameter, portion of the machine was stripped off the plates t, into a tram-wagon and sent to an old-fashioned pan kiln for drying. This was quite a small ji" concern worked by one man; coal fired, with flues running under a 9ft wide pan alongside a smalilinhay. The building was of currugated iron over a wooden frame and, on shut down, was bought by a local farmer for an implement shed. Its 60ft metal stack had been made by the works blacksmith and there are stories of metal plates being used on the pan in place of traditional firebrick kiln tiles.<'Z) (Captain Billy Littleton experimented with similar plates at Central Cornwall kiln at Pontsmill in the 1950s but could not persuade his employers of their merit). To return to the centrifuges; from 1904, William J. Gee, in a series of patents, put forward plans for the use of centrifugal force in both the dewatering and refining of China Clay. Although modified in detail in each patent, his basic concept remained steadfast. (23) Gee claimed that "the type of machines most suitable for general work involving great bulk of material will require about 5hp for driving when running, but an overload of about 15hp will be taken at starting ... When electric power is obtainable it will be easy to fit each machine with an independent motor of a type that will take the heavy starting strain, and run economically on the lower power afterwards ... In industries where the recovered solid matter has to be dried, as in the case of china clay, the use of the Gee Process enables great economies to be effected in the cost of drying. This is partly due to the fact that a high degree of expression of water can be attained in the machine, and partly because the charge is recovered in slabs or on trays, which are easily handled. "(24) The first-grade clay stripped from the centrifuge panels was fed to the "new patent dryer," a type of band dryer. This machine was located in the trench, mentioned above, that ran alongside the line of Gees. It consisted of a table constructed of asbestos with a covering of sheet zinc. Endless wires set at about 3,4" apart ran along the top of this table, over a head roller, back underneath and up on top again by way of a tail pulley. Heat was supplied under the table by about thirty cross pipes each with, say, a dozen burners set along its length; with the aid of a fan, these were supplied with gas from the Crossley, open heath, gas plant. The geography of the installation was such that the top of the tables was on the level of the platform, where the clay was stripped from the separator panels. The wires moved the clay along over the drying surface and discharged it via a collecting chute to a hopper from which it was to be bagged-off directly into paper bags. (This must have been quite an early example of despatching china clay in paper bags). This drying stystem caused problems. A Mr Smith was the engineer in charge, and he said that the dryer had worked well on town gas, however, on producer gas, results were very variable. It would work alright for a time but, whenever, the generator was topped up with anthracite, the gas was too rich and the burners would become red-hot. Nevertheless, some clay was dried successfully by the system. Now, to back-track on the story and relate some of the peripheral items that might be worth recording to stimulate further study. The Standardized China Clay Co., was rumoured to be, in actuality, a German front­ company and was simply a cover for espionage. Although Cornwall was highly

15 industrialized, almost all its industry was primary (and declining). One would have thought that the manufacturing centres of the realm would have been much more "spy-worthy" and that all such tales were probably pure xenophobia. However, such stores are persistent and widespread, mentioned by almost everyone who has some knowledge of Belowda Clayworks. The Company is linked, through such stories, with Higher Fraddon C1ayworks, the pits at Halloon (St. Columb Road) and an alleged attempt to produce alum at Savath. Before the outbreak of the Great War, the works manager, a German called Leach(?), lodged at the Victoria Inn. Periodically, he used to despatch clay from Roche Station. The infrequency of these shipments fueled the spy-stories. The clay was shipped in large linen-like bags, not unlike flour bags, that held 2cwt each, or thereabouts. They were sent off in ones and twos by goods delivery, and would not have made a truck load in total. Herr Leach told the despatcher that each bog of clay was worth £10, suggesting the very high price of about £100 per ton. (If true, this suggests a premium product, indeed). Taken to the plant and shown round, all that he could recall was the Bollinder oil engine and the fact that one room was conspicuously locked and forbidden to all except the Manager. (25) To the east of the main building, there appears to be the remains of a tunnel kiln ­ a concrete tunnel of square cross-section. (26) This is believed to have been an early development, but firm information is hard to pin-down. "Drying was done in a tunnel, on a wagon taking about twenty minutes for one journey through the kiln. This wagon was of steel, but the prototype had been of wood and had caught fire; the clay came out of the tunnel thin and 'shurdy' like dinner plates. "(27) This description strongly suggests the drying of centrifuge product. It seems that, rather than underfloor heat as at the later tunnels at Drinnick, hot-air was sucked through this structure; evidently the temperatures were higher than originally had been intended. It appears to have been in use at least as late as 1920. (22) Other vague rumours, concern experiments involving the winnowing of coarse clay through this structure with the aim of getting dry clay of super fineness at the far end, grading to rubbish at the front end. Success did not attend these efforts, it seems. Some experimentation with chemical bleaching and with magnetic separation were said to have taken place but the results gave little encouragment for further work. In the summer of 1913, a farm boy was hoeing mangols when a swarm of cyclists appeared with a local minister way out in front. (29) Hoping for a little excitement, he threw down his hoe, hopped on his push bike, and followed the crowd on their way to Belowda Clay-works. The hubbub that followed their arrival brought Capt. Chapman onto the scene. The preacher stated his demands in a most stirring fashion, the chief of which was for a 25/- a week (£1.25) minimum wage. "My dear Man! They ben't goin' to volly thee.' Way! They'm gettin' more'n that now!" The flying pickets flew off towards Roche, a little crest-fallen. (30) Prior to 1914, claims were being made that clays were being flocu1ated and de-floculated by the Germans at Belowda using acid, believed to have been HCI, and alum. (10) There is some evidence that Count Schwerin's "Osmose" process was subjected to trials at Belowda around the time of the Great War. (Be10wda was shut down throughout the actual duration of that conflict and some Germans connected with the works were said to have been interned). However, apart from vague rumours of the use of electricity and wire netting to get rid of the mi<;a, there was circumstantial physical evidence in the form of

16 a long trough of semicircular cross-section. If what had been tested was the process used in Germany and Austria, what would this have entailed? The clay matrix was dug and slurried and the sand and stones discarded. The raw clay slip at a much higher density than could be treated through conventional mica-drags, had an appropriate electrolyte added and the clay was roughly refined according to Stoke's Law, either by batching, or by continuous refining. Once the very coarsest particles of mica, quartz and undercomposed felspar had dropped out, the slip was passed on to the "osmos" machine. The osmos machine consisted of a semicylindrical trough with a rotating metal drum mounted along its axis; this was the anode. The cathode consisted of a half-cylinder of wire netting suspended within the trough, concentric with the anode cylinder and only 1/2" away from it. The clay slip flowed slowly into the trough over one long edge, below the bottom half of the anode, up and out over the far edge in its depleted state. The anode was rotated at about Ih rpm, and a D.C. current was applied to the apparatus at from 60 to 100 volts. The process relied on the fact that the kaolin particles were strongly electro­ negative and, thus, attached themselves to the anode drum while the principal deleterious impurities, mainly oxides of iron and titanium, being electro-positive, pass through the wire netting cathode and collect in the trough bottom from whence they could be removed mechanically. Any excess silica is neutral or, if ironstained, positive and this, by a combination of gravitational and electrical propulsion, tended to settle in the trough with the other rejects. The clay particles are strongly attracted to the anode, which tends to repel the water, allowing a blanket of clay to be scraped off the above-liquid half of the anode, by means of a static knife, in a sheet the length of the anode and about V2" thick. Claims of moisture contents as low as 20% were made for this cake under favourable conditions with power consumptions of from 20 to 70 units per ton of products. The electrolyte was recirculated with fresh clay slip and losses were said to be small(31) Besides the rejection of non-kaolinitic particles and of some iron-stained clay and the production of a cake claimed to contain as little as 20% moisture, in Germany, fine 'osmosed' clay also was claimed to have another great advantage for one specific application. "By the use of fine 'osmosed' materials, chemical porcelain has been produced of the highest quality, capable of withstanding high temperatures, being made of pure kaolin only. " That especially pure feed-stock was also desirable for the production of artificial ultramarine. (32) What actually was tried at Belowda and with what results, is not known. However, a semi-circular cross-sectioned steel trough, about 60ft long was pressed into service in the slightly sad, dying days of the enterprise when their blacksmith was required to fit it with a sheet steel lid after which it was hoisted up on end and used as a stack for their last kiln. Capt. Chapman upended this "lash-up" using an ordinary clayworks teagle, or hand winch.(121 In 1918 the Osmosis Co., Ltd. and J. S. Highfield patented the addition of very small amounts of caustic soda and silicate of soda to china clay slurries as a method of keeping suspensions of25% solids (W/W basis) fluid. Previously about 5% solids (1.032 density) marked the upper limit of trouble-free working. This was exemplified as being the upper limit of good separation in mica drags before the days of chemical defloculation. (33) One of the men that worked on the Gee machines made the comment that the management

17 at Belowda would, in his opinion, have stood a much better chance of success if they had concentrated on one machine or process at a time and got it right rather than trying to be innovative in all directions at once. He couldn't judge how financially viable any of the processes were but, from the practical point of view, all the elements worked perfectly at times, the band dryer being a good example which, he felt sure could have been made to work satisfactorily at all times if effort could have been concentrated on it, but there was so much else that could give trouble before that problem could be corrected properly. Of course, Belowda might only have been a test-bed for subsequent installations in Germany, used purely to keep experimental lines from the eyes of competitors. He decided that it was time to look for another job when, to fill an order for 300 tons of their premium product, he saw the whole of the cake from the separators being used to achieve the tonnage. He already knew enough about clayworks to know that there was only one end to that practice and he took a job driving the winder at Wheal Prosper. (15) In 1922 or '3, the works had been shut down for about half a year while the plant and flowsheet was rejigged with new equipment installed. It appears that the Company was reconstructed at this time. The enterprise restarted with a payroll of about twenty but seems to have gradually run down hill to its final abandonment. At the very end they were using small hoses to win clay in the bottoms with a 2" gravel pump delivering sand and slurry to grass. The little, one-man, coal-fired, pan kiln seems to have been fed in the last days with muck run in from the three round pits making it, in effect, an improvised run-in muck-dry. The wood-framed, galvanize-clad, building which housed the pan and linhay was purchased as an implement shed by "Farmer" Julian of Kernick Farm. "The engines went down West"; presumably indicating that the Bollinder and the Petter engines were purchased by mines west of .(34) One blondin is said to have finished its working life at Rostowrack Quarry, possibly after a short stay at Central Treviscoe China-stone Quarry. The story current at the time, was that the works had closed because they had "run out of clay. " Although there might not have been large ore reserves left, certainly there was the piece of ground between Belowda Pit and Belovely old bottoms and the real reason is more likely to have been lack of funds. After the abandonment, the metal-framed windows (yet another innovation) were reused by local tenants of the mineral lord, Lord Falmouth. Some went into a new stable built on Pitsmingle Farm at Roche. During the post-war working, S.P. Ward of Roche prospected for china clay immediately to the west of the B3274, but with no success.(14)

This all snacks of a sad, somewhat ignominious end to what had started out as a valiant attempt to advance c1ayworks technology on a broad front. More than fifty years were to pass before several of the processes were again investigated in the British Isles, some being brought into use. The history of these two semi-forgotten little pits is far from complete. Much remains to be discovered and further work certainly will revise some of what has been written. The Standardized China Clay Co., Ltd, had been registered in 1912 and, on May 9th 1924, a Receiver was appointed. It was struck off the Company's Register in Dec. 1931. (c. f. Yearbook volume for 1932). (35) However, there is a suspicion that the 1908-1912 doubt about the construction date of the main building might be justified. In June 1908 a "New Company" called the "Standard China-Clay Co., Ltd," was announced in the

18 technical press. (36) The details of this somewhat similarly named company give rise to the suspicions. It had a capital of £25,000 in £1 shares with a stated aim "to acquire any invt:ntiuns relating to thc mining, processing, treatment, application and use of kaolin or china-clay and, in particular, to acquire from the W.G. Patents Syndicate Ltd, the right to use a certain existing invention referred to therein, and to get and prepare china clay for market. Minimum cash subscription, 25 % of the shares offered to the public." Now, "W.G. Patents" reads similarly to "W. Gee Patents" with the aims and objectives of the company anticipating those of the Standardized China Clay Co. Obviously there is scope for more research. No sett location has been found for the Standard China Clay Co's operations.

Research continues. Should any readers have further information or suggested leads, or even constructive criticism, the author would be most pleased to hear from them. This article should be considered to be no more than a "reconnaissance in depth. " This most interesting little corner of the China Clay Industry deserves a much more thorough investigation. Apart from confirming or correcting the bare bones set out above, a thorough site investigation shall yield much of interest. The various leases that must have been involved have not been discovered. Setting out where the building, the metal framed windows, many of the processes and some of the machines, fit into the broader picture of Industrial History could reveal several "firsts" for Cornwall, if not for the . A study of the Company itself, its structure, financing and principals should be an interesting project. (37) Some of Belowda's history might be on the Continent, available to the public, but in German. So far, little has come to light on the markets supplied by Belowda; lead pencils and chemical ceramics and glass-ware are the only suggested outlets and the sources of the suggestions were far from precise. If the foregoing succeeds in convincing some readers that the China Clay Industry is of considerable interest and well worthy of study and that the Belowda site requires urgent attention before it is further whittled away, then its objectives will have been achieved.

Notes & References (1) Mines & Miners of Cornwall, Vol IX, by A.K. Hamilton Jenkin. (2) Belowda Beacon Mine illustrates just how difficult it is to be cenain when many small Cornish mines were being worked, their production figures being even more obscure. The Great Huel Polgooth United Tin Mines Co., Ltd., with William Richards as its Chief Agent was, apparently, a combine or operating company. The 1881 Mineral Statistics records it as embracing Tregrehan, Belowda, Bryan Royalton, Bunhy Row, Alviggan, and Burngullow Sells (and Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all?) The length of the company's title suggests that it probably was of little significance. (3) Cornish Mines by Roger Burt, Peter Waite & Ray Burnley (1987). (4) Royal Cornwall Gazette 9/l1/l877. Hancock & Sons were hoping to sell Belowda Clay Works on Nov. 13th "as a going concern" but would be prepared to sell the equipment piece-meal. (5) Dr. John Penderill-Church, formerly of the Marketing Dept., of English China Clays Ltd. Unfortunately, Dr Penderill-Church rarely disclosed his sources, so that double-checking is not possible. Obviously his closing date is ten years too soon and the Collins ofCollins & Co, in unlikely to have been the J.H. Collins F.G.S. who, according to his potted biography in the recent reprint of his "Hensbarrow Granite District," was not born until 1841. However, this is the only suggestion available for a date of opening and 1856 is, therefore, provisionally accepted. (6) It must be firmly understood that, in local parlance, the "ups" are downs and the "downs" are moors; e.g. Hensbarrow Downs, but Goss Moor.

19 (7) Turf was cut with an adze-shaped tool known as a turf biddix which had a large, wide blade. Turf did not bum as well as peat, but it could be cropped where no peat existed and a turfy fire would throw out tremendous heat once it got going. The saying was that a turf fire was only worth sitting beside when it was time to go to bed. The season for cutting turf was late summer when there was a good thick top but no lush growth, the trick being to cut it with only a thin depth of root-filled soil adhering. A site that had had its turf stripped could be cropped again after about ten or twenty years. The fifty years from 1865 to the Great War is said to have seen the local downs very heavily cropped for turf. Some of the last turf burnt in the district was fired in 1926 when an old Whitemoor man bought a bag of coal for his wife to try "to zee ef she could git on with'n." She was so pleased that she went out into the yard and burnt down the remainder of the turf-rick to forestall having to finish using that before a regular coal supply was provided. The result of all this turf cutting was that, on many downs, the cover over much of the clay ground was very sparse. (See Ref. 10 for the source). (8) Blocks of mica clay, evaporated to semi-dryness in shallow sun-pans, were air dried by the wind after having been arranged on wooden shelves in an open-sided shed called an "air dry." (9) Int.387., MV, 1991, (cI935). . All Interview Numbers are followed by the interviewee's initials, the year of the interview and, in brackets, his or her birth year, permitting the informants age at the time of the event and of the interview, to be deduced. (10) Int 32., G.S., 1976 (1912). (II) Mining Magazine for Nov., 1912, p.387. (12) Int. 221, O.P. 1980, (1902). (13) Such a device, that worked an almost identical system, still can be seen near SW 9500 5560 at the Slip China Stone Quarry belonging to the Goonvean & Rostowrack China Clay Co. (14) Int 416, R.E. 1994 (1910). (15) Int. 193, W.T. 1979 (1901). (16) The building, pits and micas were measured in plan and elevation during a reconnaisance visit on Oct 13th 1979. (17) Certainly this building is not later than 1912, but further research is required. As an early example of its type, this building deserves more attention. (18) Int 5, R.T., 1975 (1900). (19) In clayworks parlance, the term "oil engine" usually signifies a paraffin oil engine unless specifically designated otherwise. The Bollinder was said to have come, second hand, off a Norwegian ship. On startup, the driver had to be very alert, since this machine would start in reverse almost as readily as in forward motion. (20) Mining Magazine for March 1912, p.224-225. (21) In the parallel sided machines described in the patents, the coarsest panicles were deposited at the top, feed, end of the machine with a gradual fining down to the bottom where, by adjusting the flow-rate to suit the machine, its speed and the feed material, clear water could be made to overflow the annular weir. The Belowda machines increased in diameter from top to bottom and this would have enhanced the effect by increasing the peripheral speed and the g-forces involved. This meant that, like the early mica-refined clays, clays could be produced without resorting to the use of chemicals and yet a fine panicle sized product could be achieved. (22) The China Clay Trade Review, Vol!., No. 12, for May 1920. (23) Int. 197, A.K, 1979 (c. 1955). (24) Gee's patents. Royal Letters Patent No. 4155 (1907). (25) Int. 44, RB, 1975 (1900). (26) No excavation has been attempted on site and, with the floor of this unit obscured by debris, the firing arrangements and method of heat transfer are not known. However, the existing remains do give credence to the stories told by past Belowda employees. (27) Int 26, A.R, 1975 (1908). (28) Int. 13, J.P, 1975 (1930). (29) Probably this was the Rev. Booth Coventry of the United Methodist Chapel at , who was an enthusiastic leader of the Clayworkers' Strike of 1913. (30) Int. 251, B.H. 1981. (1895). (31) There were a number of mentions of the electro-osmotic refining of clay slurries in the technical and trade press just before and after the Great War. These include: The Transactions of the English Ceramic Society for 1913, p.36-64. A paper read before the Royal Society of Arts on May 15th, 1920. In the China Clay Trade Review - various numbers in Vol II for May, June & July 1920. (32) The China Clay Trade Review Vol II, No. 24, for May 1921. (33) Mining Magazine, Jan., 1920, p.57 under "Recent Patents Published": 18919 of 1918 (135 277) Osmosis Co., Ltd, and J.S. Highfield, London. (34) Int. 140, G.C, 1978 (1909).

20 (35) Register of Defunct & Other Companies removed from the Stock Exchange Official Yearbook 1974-75. (36) The British Clayworker, Vol. XVII, June 1908, p.82. (37) A number of names connected with the management and financing of Belowda have been mentioned, but their function and dates of invotvement werc unrecorded and spelling is uncertain. A list might jog memories or spark research: Capt. Thomas Henry Chapman and Capt. William John Chapman were likely to have come from St. Wenn and were traditional clayworks captains in all probability. Capt. Lesserible and Capt. Leach (Liech, or?) were said to be German and on-site managers. Also involved were Mr. Rider, Mr. Sayers, Mr. Gee (probably William J. Gee, the inventor), the Carter family of (shipping agents), Mr. Vanderbourgh and Dr. W. Felderheimer. Quite possibly some is mis-information since the names come from half a dozen different sources.

21