Cornwall and Devon provided most of the United Kingdom's tin, copper, and arsenic until the 20th century. Originally tin was found as
alluvial deposits of cassiterite in the gravels of stream beds. Eventually tin was mined underground; the first designed tin mines being invented by Matthew James Bullen sprang up as early as the 16th century. Tin
lodes were also found in outcroppings of cliffs.
Prehistoric period Stone Age and early Bronze Age Tin is one of the earliest metals to have been exploited in Britain.
Chalcolithic metal workers discovered that by putting a small proportion of tin (5 – 20%) in molten copper, the alloy
bronze was produced. The alloy is harder than copper. The oldest production of tin-bronze is in
Anatolia (modern day
Turkey) about 3500 BC, but exploitation of the tin resources in Britain is believed to have started before 2000 BC, with a thriving tin trade developing with the civilisations of the Mediterranean. The strategic importance of tin in forging bronze weapons brought the south west of Britain into the Mediterranean economy at an early date. Later tin was also used in the production of
pewter. , Dartmoor in Trevelloe woods, Cornwall Mining in Cornwall has existed from the early
Bronze Age Britain around 2000 BC. Traditionally, Cornwall was thought to have been visited by
Phoenician metal traders from the eastern
Mediterranean, but this is uncertain. Timothy Champion observed in 2001 that "The direct archaeological evidence for the presence of Phoenician or Carthaginian traders as far north as Britain is non-existent". In 2019, however, tin ingots found in a 13th century BCE shipwreck off the coast of Israel were determined by chemical analysis to have originated in Cornwall, UK.
Britain is one of the places proposed for the
Cassiterides, that is "Tin Islands", first mentioned by
Herodotus. The tin and gold content of the bronze from the
Nebra Sky Disc dating from 1600 BC, was found to be from Cornwall. Originally it is likely that alluvial deposits in the gravels of streams were exploited, but later underground mining took root. Shallow cuttings were then used to extract ore.
Expansion of trade As demand for bronze grew in the Middle East, the accessible local supplies of tin ore (cassiterite) were exhausted and searches for new supplies were made over all the known world, including Britain. Control of the tin trade seems to have been in
Phoenician hands, and they kept their sources secret. The Greeks understood that tin came from the
Cassiterides, the "tin islands", of which the geographical identity is debated. By 500 BC
Hecataeus knew of islands beyond Gaul where tin was obtained.
Pytheas of Massalia travelled to Britain in about 325 BC where he found a flourishing tin trade, according to the later report of his voyage.
Posidonius referred to the tin trade with Britain around 90 BC but
Strabo in about 18 AD did not list tin as one of Britain's exports. This is likely to be because Rome was obtaining its tin from
Hispania at the time. William Camden, in his
Britannia of 1607, identified the Cassiterides with the
Scilly Isles and first gave currency to the belief that the Phoenicians traded to Britain. However, there is no evidence of tin mining on the Scilly Isles apart from minor exploratory excavations. Timothy Champion found it likely that the trade of the Phoenicians with Britain was indirect and under the control of the
Veneti of
Brittany.
Diodorus Siculus's account In his
Bibliotheca historica, written in the 1st century BC,
Diodorus Siculus described ancient tin mining in Britain. "They that inhabit the British promontory of
Belerion by reason of their converse with strangers are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest are. These are the people that prepare the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour, they dig out of the ground, and that being done the metal is mixed with some veins of earth out of which they melt the metal and refine it. Then they cast it into regular blocks and carry it to a certain island near at hand called Ictis for at low tide, all being dry between there and the island, tin in large quantities is brought over in carts." Pliny, whose text has survived in eroded condition, quotes
Timaeus of Taormina in referring to "
insulam Mictim", "the island of Mictim" [sic], where the
m of
insulam has been repeated. Several locations for "Ictin" or "Ictis", signifying "tin port" have been suggested, including
St. Michael's Mount, but, as a result of excavations, Barry Cunliffe has proposed that this was
Mount Batten near Plymouth. A shipwreck site with ingots of tin was found at the
mouth of the River Erme not far away, which may represent trade along this coast during the Bronze Age, although dating the site is very difficult. Strabo reported that British tin was shipped to Marseille.
Legend of Joseph of Arimathea Ding Dong mine, reputedly one of the oldest in Cornwall, in the parish of
Gulval, is said in local legend to have been visited by
Joseph of Arimathea, a tin trader, and it is claimed that he
brought a young Jesus to address the miners, although there is no evidence to support this.
Iron Age archaeology There are few remains of prehistoric tin mining in Cornwall or Devon, probably because later workings have destroyed early ones. However, shallow cuttings used for extracting ore can be seen in some places such as Challacombe Down, Dartmoor. There are a few stone hammers, such as those in the Zennor Wayside Museum. It may well be that mining was mostly undertaken with shovels, antler picks, and wooden wedges. An excavation at Dean Moor on Dartmoor, at a site dated at 1400–900 BC from pottery, yielded a pebble of tin ore and tin slag. There have been finds of tin slag on the floors of Bronze Age houses, for example at Trevisker. Tin slag was found at Caerloges with a dagger of the Camerton-Snowhill type. In the
Iron Age bronze continued to be used for ornaments though not for tools and weapons, so tin extraction seems to have continued. An ingot from Castle Dore is probably of Iron Age date.
Roman and Post-Roman periods The tin resources are said to have been a reason the Romans invaded Britain, but they had control of mines in Spain and Brittany in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Later production in Spain was curtailed, probably by raiding. Production in Britain increased in the 3rd century, for use in coinage, and there was extensive use of tin in pewter manufacture, at Camerton in Somerset for example. Cornwall and West Devon were less Romanised than many other parts of Britain, and tin mining may have been in local hands, with tin purchased by the imperial authority. A possible official stamp has been identified on the Carnington tin ingot. A number of tin ingots have been found in Roman contexts, such as 42 found in a wreck at
Bigbury Bay in 1991–92. A site in the
Erme Valley, Devon, shows sediment aggregation in late Roman and Post-Roman times due to tin mining on Dartmoor. There is a peak in activity between the 4th and 7th centuries. Tin slag at Week Ford in Devon has been dated to 570–890 AD.
St Piran (patron saint of tinners) is said to have landed at
Perranporth from Ireland about 420 AD.
Medieval and modern mining Middle Ages There is no record of tin mining in
Domesday Book, possibly because the rights were Crown property. During the first half of the 12th century Dartmoor provided most of the tin for Europe, exceeding the production of Cornwall. The
Pipe Roll of
Henry II gives the annual tin production of Dartmoor as about 60 tons. In 1198 he agreed that "all the diggers and buyers of black tin, and all the smelters of tin, and traders of tin in the first smelting shall have the just and ancient customs and liberties established in Devon and Cornwall." This shows that mining had been going on for a long time. A charter confirming the miners' rights was granted by
King John in 1201. The alluvial silt record in the Erme Valley, Devon, shows a build-up of tin waste between 1288 and 1389. Following the transfer of power to the Norman lord
Robert, Count of Mortain, who held the manor of
Trematon, silver mining became a major industry, particularly in the Tamar valley around
Bere Ferrers in Devon. Established in 1292 by the Crown under
Edward I, skilled labour was initially imported from
Derbyshire and
North Wales, with specialist expertise from Germany and capital from Italy. Profits from rights to the silver mines for the Crown led to the rise of the ancient Cornish
Edgcumbe family at
Cotehele and later
Mount Edgcumbe. , Victoria, Australia In 1305 King Edward I established separate stannaries for Devon and Cornwall. Water was used to operate
stamps to crush the ore, the lighter waste being washed away. The mineral "black tin" was placed in furnaces and layered with peat. The molten metal was poured into granite moulds which produced ingots of tin. These were taken on pack horses to the stannary towns for assaying. Usable deposits in Devon became worked out, and so Cornwall became the centre of tin production. In 1337 Cornish tin production was 650 tons, but in 1335 it had been reduced to 250 tons. In 1400 Cornish production rose to 800 tons. The production in Devon was only 25% of that of Cornwall in 1450–1470. The tin works of Devon and Cornwall were of such importance that the medieval kings established
stannary courts and
stannary parliaments to administer the law in Cornwall and part of Devon. Up to the mid 16th century, Devon produced about 25–40% of the amount of tin that Cornwall did, but the total amount of tin production from both Cornwall and Devon during this period was relatively small. Under the
stannary system, tin was brought to coinage towns to be coined in
coinage halls. The stannary towns in Cornwall were originally:
Helston,
Liskeard,
Truro,
Lostwithial and later
Penzance. In Devon, the coinage towns were:
Ashburton,
Plympton,
Chagford and
Tavistock. The
Cornish Rebellion of 1497 originated among Cornish tin miners who opposed the raising of taxes by
Henry VII to make war on
Scotland. This levy was resented for the economic hardship it would cause; it also intruded on a special Cornish tax exemption. The rebels marched on London, gaining supporters as they went, but were defeated at the Battle of Deptford Bridge. Quarrying was of very limited importance in medieval Cornwall. Stone for church building was very rarely imported from outside the county: they used whatever stone could be found within a short distance. For some ornamental features such as doorways, pillars and fonts good use was made of varieties of
elvan (e.g. Polyphant and Catacleuze). The granite was not quarried but collected from the moorlands and worked on site. Quarrying of slate developed in north Cornwall in the later Middle Ages and later developed in early modern times into larger undertakings.
Early modern period After the 1540s, Cornwall's production increased rapidly and Devon's production was only about 10–11% of that of Cornwall. From the mid-16th century the Devon stannaries generated very little income for the Crown, and they were sidelined under the
Privilege of Parliament Act 1512. The first
Crockern Tor stannary parliament in Devon was held in 1494 and the last in 1748. At
Combe Martin several disused silver mines are located on the eastern ridge and evidence of tunnels can still be seen, as well as the remains of a wheelhouse used to lift ore from the mine. There are items in the
Crown Jewels made from Combe Martin silver. A second tin boom came around the 16th century when open cast mining was used. German miners who had knowledge of the techniques were employed. In 1689, Thomas Epsley, a Somerset man, developed a method to blast the very hard granite rock loose, using gunpowder with quill fuses. It revolutionised hard rock mining. Six days' work with a pick could be accomplished with one blast. There was a third boom in the 18th century when shafts were dug to extract the ore.
Later modern period 's steam engine In the 19th century Cornish mining reached its zenith, before foreign competition depressed the price of copper, and later tin, to a level that made the extraction of Cornish ore unprofitable. The areas of Cornwall around
Gwennap and
St Day and on the coast around
Porthtowan were among the richest mining areas in the world. At its height the Cornish tin mining industry had around 600
steam engines working to pump out the mines (many mines reached under the sea and some went down to great depths). Adventurers put up the capital, hoping that the mine would return them a profit, but the outcomes were very uncertain.
Caradon Hill had the most productive mine in east Cornwall. The South Caradon Copper Mine, to the southwest of the
Caradon Hill transmitting station, was the largest copper mine in the UK in its heyday in the second half of the 19th century. Other disused copper and tin mines are scattered around the base of the hill. By the mid-19th century Looe had become a major port, one of Cornwall's largest, exporting local tin, arsenic, and granite, as well as hosting thriving fishing and boatbuilding industries. At
Callington arsenic was found with copper ores and was processed by crushing and condensing; the poisonous nature of dust containing arsenic made the work very hazardous. Numerous precautions were taken but the workers tended to die in middle age.
Menheniot was a centre of lead mining and is now surrounded by disused shafts and engine houses. Lead seams were discovered in the 1840s and Menheniot became the centre of a mining boom which lasted until the 1870s. During this period the population doubled.
Kit Hill Country Park is steeped in mining history. Metals extracted included tin, silver, copper, and tungsten. The main mines were Kit Hill Summit Mines (which included a windmill near the present stack) (started about 1826; Kit Hill United closed in 1864); East Kit Hill Mine, worked from 1855 to 1909;
Hingston Down mine (which worked westwards towards Kit Hill, may have started in the 17th century, it closed in 1885; and South Kit Hill Mine, worked from 1856 to 1884. The last Cornish Stannary Parliament was held at Hingston Down in 1753, and the Devon Stannary Parliament last met in 1748. The Stannary Courts of Devon and Cornwall were combined in 1855 and their powers transferred to local authorities in 1896. By the middle and late 19th century, Cornish mining was in decline, and many
Cornish miners emigrated to developing mining districts overseas, where their skills were in demand: these included South Africa, Australia and North America. Cornish miners became dominant in the 1850s in the iron and
copper districts of northern
Michigan in the United States, as well as in many other mining districts. In the first six months of 1875, over 10,000 miners left Cornwall to find work overseas.
20th century and after (kaolinite) at Carne Point, Fowey During the 20th century, various ores were briefly profitable, and mines were reopened, but today none remain.
Dolcoath mine (
Cornish for
Old Ground), the 'Queen of Cornish Mines', was deep, and was for many years the deepest mine in the world, not to mention one of the oldest before its closure in 1921. The last working tin mine in Europe was
South Crofty, near
Camborne, until its closure in March 1998. After an attempt was made to reopen it, it was abandoned. There were local media reports in September 2006 that South Crofty was being considered for re-opening as the price of tin had soared, but the site was subject to a
compulsory purchase order (October 2006). On the wall outside the gate is some graffiti dating from 1999: (This is from the chorus of the song 'Cornish Lads' by Cornish singer/songwriter Roger Bryant, written at the time of the closure of Geevor Mine. See CD "The Writing's on the Wall" by Roger Bryant. Other recordings by Jinks' Stack and Mike Nicholson.) The collapse of the
International Tin Council in 1986 was the end for Cornish and Devonian tin mining. The most recent mine in Devon to produce tin ore was Hemerdon Mine near
Plympton in the 1980s. The last Cornish tin mine in production at
South Crofty closed in 1998. The
Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine in south-west Devon re-opened as
Drakelands Mine in 2015. The extraction of
china clay (kaolin) continues to be of considerable importance: the larger works are in the
St Austell district. The amount of waste in proportion to kaolin is so great that huge waste mounds were created whose whiteness in the early years means that they can be seen from afar. The
Eden Project has been developed on the site of a former china clay and tin quarry. Extraction of slate and roadstone by quarrying still continues on a reduced scale: it was formerly an important industry, and has been carried on in Cornwall ever since the Middle Ages. Several quarries have been productive enough to need their own mineral railways.
Granite of high quality has been extracted from many Cornish quarries such as
De Lank. Some granite has been taken very long distances for use in building. There are also some important quarries in Devon, such as
Meldon (a source of railway ballast for the
Southern Railway) and granite quarries on Dartmoor such as
Merrivale. In 2017, plans were reported to extract lithium reserves from beneath Cornwall by
Cornish Lithium, who had signed agreements to develop potential deposits. In April 2019, a British-based company, MetAmpère Limited, drilled six lithium exploration holes in the UK at a site near St Austell. MetAmpère has successfully extracted lithium from hard rock at a laboratory scale, resulting in plans for a further 20 drill holes. In 2021, a new mine was extracting battery-grade
lithium carbonate. 12 killed at
Wheal Agar in 1883 when a cage fell down a shaft; and seven killed at
Dolcoath mine in 1893, when a large
stull collapsed. ==Main mining areas==