Tinners
Four of us were gathered together this week (celebrating St David’s Day), and one of us asked what Cornwall meant to each of us.
Here are the responses:
Tintagel Castle, The Eden Project and St Mawes
China clay moonscapes and clotted cream
Cliffs and wild coasts, holiday homes and Posy Simmonds cartoons
Arsenic
Arsenic: how very perceptive.
As our collective list shows, Cornwall is good on memorable and iconic landscapes. Go to the home page of the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and you will see a moody and romantic image of a tin mine engine house and stack, perched on the edge of a rugged coastal cliffs (https://www.cornwall-aonb.gov.uk/). These structures are symbolic of ‘an extended period of industrial expansion and prolific innovation’ (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1215/) which contributed enormously, not only to the landscape of Cornwall, but also to the industrial revolution, the British economy, to mining around the world and, of course, climate change.
The long term impact of mining and industrialisation on the planet was probably impossible to imagine during the heady years of technological development, sizeable profit margins and world-wide influence. But there were other issues, however, which could and should have been recognised at the time. Arsenic was just one of these.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Mining has a very long history in Cornwall, probably starting in the Bronze Age. Medieval mining of tin was so significant in the south west that separate Stannary Courts and Parliaments were set up in Devon and Cornwall in the early 14th century. The UNESCO world heritage site ‘Cornish and West Devon Mining Landscape’ (granted in 2006) focuses on the period from 1700 to 1914, and specifically mentions the significance of the ‘remains of mines, engines houses, smallholdings, ports, harbours, canals, railways, tramroads, and industries allied to mining, along with new towns and villages’. Of such fragments are romantic landscapes created.
Terroir’s induction into Cornish Tin Mining was provided by the Geevor Tin Mine (https://geevor.com/), on the north Cornish coast, near the villages of Pendeen and Boscaswell. It is part of the St Just Mining Area and the site is now run by Pendeen Community Heritage. Ironically, Geevor is a ‘modern’ mine established around 1906 and expanded significantly after World War I. The mine closed in 1990 and the pumps, which drained the mine, were switched off in 1991. Despite its modernity by UNESCO standards, the mine describes itself as the ‘Key Centre within the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site’. But, of course, if there were plenty of earlier mines remaining, with which to interpret Cornwall’s mining history, there might be no need for a World Heritage Site.
It took us two mornings to get our heads around the vocabulary of developers, stopers and samplers; of cross cuts, lodes, drives, pillars and box holes; of wagons, locomotives, rocker shovels, skips and, of course the grizzly. We learnt to interpret the photographs of young men, stripped to the waste, undertaking gruelling, skilled, manual labour in hot, deep, cramped, under-sea, mining levels. We began to understand the efficiencies brought by Trevithick’s steam technology (in, for instance, economics of production, and in underground safety through water pumping, ventilation and personnel transport) and the increased impact of steam-driven mining on Cornwall and around the world. We got a handle on the complexities of processing the ore to a marketable product which could be sold on to manufacturers. And we began to understand the cost in human life in winning, processing and supporting the entire industry.
Below:
Upper and middle row - a historical range of mining technology
Lower row - views of the Geevor Mine processing area
Below left: a model of the 20th century shaft and winding gear as it once was, and will be again. Below right: the winding gear currently under repair.
Despite this growing understanding of mining issues, the landscape around Geevor Mine seemed surprisingly innocent.
But, as a guide explained to us, the expanses of waste gravels and green fields below us would once have been occupied by extraction paraphenalia and a shanty town housing miners and all the ancillary workers who serviced the pre 20th century mines – candle makers, charcoal-burners, carpenters, smiths, smelters, carters, chandlers, shop keepers, ale-house keepers, and so on. Even in the 20th century (below right), it would have been a busy area.
The stonehenge style kit on the left, by the way, is the remains of the stamps, the steam-powered ore crushers which would have thudded relentlessy, 24 hours a day.
All the rest is gone now, leaving just these romantic ruins…
But how wonderful to be working in an industry which leaves no massive scars, no starkly white China clay pyramids, no coal heaps, no shale bings, no slag heaps. All the ‘arisings’ from tin mining can be sold on as aggregate for construction, can they not? Well, maybe only after technological developments made it worth reprocessing the waste rock heaps for the tin they still contained, while chucking the unsaleable rubbish into the sea.
And we are not just talking tin here. Tin and iron come up as an oxide, accompanied by sulphide minerals such as copper, zinc, lead, bismuth, antimony and, yes, the mineral beloved of murder mysteries, arsenic.
Arsenic became a saleable bi-product of tin mining and, in the 19th century, was processed by burning in a calciner which trapped the arsenic as soot. Children were often employed to scrape it out of the chamber and chimney. Our guide explained that despite wearing an early forerunner of PPE, most of these children never lived beyond their teens. Miners’ life expectancy was also short – perhaps into their twenties and thirties. It seems likely that, in these polluted and impoverished living conditions, a woman’s life expectancy was also limited. As so often, our romantic landscapes are built on the problems of the past.
And you still want to know what a grizzly is? It’s a set of parallel steel bars used to sieve out the large chunks of ore. Gravity sent the small stuff through the bars into the skip loading boxes below. The grizzly man had to break up the larger stuff with a hammer.
Lighthouse Lizard
Cornwall is famous for its stories but, as with all good tales, they change with the passing of time. Even the Cornish Wreckers are now being subjected to rehabilitation, as Terroir discovered on a visit to the Lizard Lighthouse.
There’s a lot going on at the Lizard Peninsula. Three main landowners (National Trust, Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Natural England) and an absence of fences, enhance the feeling of a windblown wilderness. It’s host to a large, if somewhat fragmented National Nature Reserve, forms an important part of the equally fragmented Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is fringed with crashing seas, rocks, cliffs and, for those with a head for heights, the South West Coast Path. Lizard Point is also the southern-most tip of Britain and home to our southern-most lighthouse - and self-catering holiday let.
Our visit to the lighthouse was made the more dramatic by being sandwiched between storms Eunice and Franklin. You would think that there would be nothing much to blow over but even Trinity House does overgrown suburban windbreaks.
The first Lizard lighthouse was completed in 1619 (https://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/lighthouses-and-lightvessels/lizard-lighthouse), over a decade before warning braziers were constructed on the South Foreland in Kent, overlooking the Goodwin Sands (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/south-foreland-lighthouse/features/the-history-of-the-lighthouse-) and many years before the first Eddystone light was operative in 1699 (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eddystone-Lighthouse-Eddystone-Rocks-English-Channel).
This early lighthouse was built by one John Killigrew who, despite opposition from local villagers (who foresaw a steep decline in income from shipwrecks), was granted a patent to construct a warning of hazardous waters, provided that the light was extinguished at the approach of ‘the enemy’. It was described as being, ‘a great benefit to mariners’, but as the ship owners refused to contribute to its upkeep, the bankrupt Killigrew was forced to demolish his philanthropic venture some 20 years later.
Peter Stanier’s ‘Cornwall’s Industrial Heritage’ notes that it was a “private lighthouse … opposed by Trinity House and local wreckers.” Trinity House says, “Many stories are told of the activities of wreckers around our coasts, most of which are grossly exaggerated, but small communities occasionally and sometimes officially benefited from the spoils of shipwrecks, and petitions for lighthouses were, in certain cases, rejected on the strength of local opinion; this was particularly true in the South West of England”. How tactful (Terroir’s highlighting). On this subject, we can also recommend a ‘Stories in Stone’ video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdKHi4JYrag.
Whatever the reason, subsequent lighthouse applications failed until, in 1748, Trinity House supported local landowner Thomas Fonnereau, in a successful lighthouse bid. The building (in operation by 1752) consisted of two towers with a cottage between them, which had a window facing each tower. Coal fires were lit on the towers, and required bellows-blowers to keep the fires burning brightly; if the fires dimmed, an overseer in the cottage would encourage their endeavours with a blast from a cow horn.
Trinity House took over responsibility for the lights in 1771, and, in 1811, replaced the coal fires with oil lights. Three additional cottages were also constructed in 1845. But the biggest change occurred with the construction of an engine room, in 1874, using “caloric engines and dynamos” to power the light and a new fog horn. Even more staff were required so more cottages followed. In 1903, a high powered rotating carbon arc light was installed on the east tower, thus eliminating the need for any light on the west tower. The arc light was replaced with an electric filament lamp in 1936. LEDs will follow soon. Automation arrived in 1998, and the resident lighthouse keepers worked their final shift.
The engine room is now a Heritage Centre, thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Exhibits range from, unsurprisingly, engineering and lamps (see below), to communications, living and working conditions and a soft play area for trial constructions of your own lighthouse tower.
The tour of the lighthouse is a must, led by Hamish the cat (no longer the kitten as noted in his job description) and assisted by a guide who one suspects is descended from those who “officially benefited from the spoils of shipwrecks”, certainly knew the light house keepers, and came suitably attired in hat, coat and bright red Wellington boots. She entertained and informed an assorted rabble of adults, children and adolescent cat, with delightful and diverting composure.
Right: Puss-in-carrier and Wonder-Women-Guide-in-Boots
The lighting system currently consists of the most magnificent four panel rotating optic which was installed in 1903. These magnificent panels, framed in Cornish granite, and, according to Wonder-Woman-Guide, resting in a tank of mercury, rotate continuously. To non-physicists like Terroir, the optics seem to represent some of the best and simplest of art nouveau, but presumably this is merely an illusion based on association with the date they were installed. We were also captivated by our guide’s allusion to the history which these lenses would have illuminated, including the passage of the Titanic on her way to meet her iceberg fate.
Such was the intensity of the light, that the rotating beam provided night long illumination, upsetting both the local ecology and the local inhabitants. As a result, a blackout was provided for the lantern room window closest to the village.
The change to electric filament lamps also allows for a simple back-up, should the ‘duty’ lamp fail before it is due to be changed. If you peer closely at the image (right) you may be able to detect a vertical lamp (the ‘duty’ lamp, in Terroir parlance) and the horizontal back up lamp.
Since automation, the back up lamp can be raised into position remotely, by the Trinity House depot in Harwich. A further back up is also available for the ultimate unexpected event. A couple of other items, no longer required but still in situ, are illustrated below.
And why does the optic rotate continuously? We have heard at least two convincing explanations: due to the structure of the lenses, a static optic, bathed in sunlight, could cause a pretty nasty fire. In addition, an optic system which has been in operation continuously since 1903, just might fail to start again.
Southern-most tip of Britain. Southern-most light house. But what about those holiday cottages? The southern-most crown is claimed by the nearby, converted Lloyds’ signal station, built in 1872 to provide communications between passing shipping and Lloyds of London (white building, just visible, right). But six of the Lighthouse cottages are also holiday lets, available via the National Trust. Terroir feels that the ‘most southerly status’ is probably theirs.