Tin Mines in and around Botallack
The tin mining industry in Cornwall began over 2,500 years ago, and references to merchants trading with Cornish tinners are found amongst the most ancient writings of Greek and Roman geographers. The rare and valuable tin produced in Cornwall was taken all over the known world.
These pioneering Cornishmen streamed the valleys and mined the veins visible in cliffs and hillsides. Throughout medieval times, the "tinners" were regarded as special people.
Charters granted by King John and Edward III gave them unique rights and privileges.
Cornishmen are justly proud of their mining heritage which, at its peak between 1750 and 1850, firmly established Cornwall as the centre of the hard rock mining world. Apart from supplying most of the world's tin and copper, Cornwall's vast experience in hard rock mining developed unique skills among its miners which were later put to work in mines throughout the world. Landowners, mineral lords and speculators made vast fortunes.
With the arrival of steam power in the 18th Century, Cornish mining engineers pioneered and developed the massive beam engines which have helped the mines to operate at ever-greater depths. Working in majestic granite engine houses, the remains of which dominate much of the Cornish countryside today, they could either pump water and raise ore and men from mines, or provide power and water for the crushing stamps and ore dressing floors at the surface on which thousands of Cornish men, women and children worked.
The decline of the industry in the mid 19th Century resulted in thousands of Cornish miners taking their families and their skills overseas to the developing mining areas of Australia, the Americas and South Africa. It is still said that wherever there is a mine you will probably find a Cornishman at the bottom of it!
The iconic view of the Botallack tin mines
From the National Trust: The remains of the mine buildings at Botallack give a fascinating glimpse of Cornish mining over a century ago. During the nineteenth century there were over 100 engine houses in the St Just district, though mining has been documented in the area much further back than this.
Early mining records date from at least the 1500s. These mine workings are far simpler than later ones and are much closer to the surface because of the difficulties of drainage. Some archaeological evidence suggests that the area was mined in the mid-Roman period, around 200 AD, and there is even suggestion of Bronze Age workings.
Mining under the sea
As at Levant and Geevor, Botallack is a submarine mine, with its workings reaching half a mile out under the seabed. Many of these workings would have been produced with hammers, chisels and gunpowder, long before compressed and mechanical air drills were invented. Botallack produced roughly 14,500 tonnes of tin, 20,000 tonnes of copper and 1,500 tonnes of refined arsenic. A staggering 1.5 million tonnes of waste would have been dumped into the sea and dyed it a distinctive red colour.
In the very early 1800s a pumping engine was set up at the base of the cliffs to pump out workings developing under the sea from the lower levels of the old Wheal Button ('wheal' is a Cornish term for 'mine' or 'work) to the north. It was successful and was replaced by the current lower engine house.
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