Images Dated 2018 September

Goonvrea, Perranarworthal, Cornwall. December 1924

A general view of Goonvrea from a distance with Cliff House below. In 1980, Rex Barratt writes in his book, Stately Homes in and Around Truro, "Goonvrea, probably built by the Fox family of Falmouth and later owned and occupied by Sir Frederick Martin Williams, M.P. for Truro (1865-1878), who was a director of the Perran Iron Foundry and the first Provincial Grand Master of Mark Masons of Cornwall. Later owners were J.P. Paull, and W.E. Harris, who was there in 1939. During the last war it was utilised by U.S. troops and is now a well-known hotel". The hotel was owned by Tony and Joyce Webb and is reported to have been devastated by fire in 1982. By the early 1990s new build houses were erected on the site. The stable block remained standing and has since been converted into houses. Photographer: Arthur William Jordan.

© From the collection of the RIC

Group of Miners, Dolcoath Mine, Camborne, Cornwall. Probably early 1900s

A group of miners at the surface. This photograph is probably taken somewhear near the 'dry' or change house at Dolcoath, where the miners could wash and exchange their wet and dirty clothes for their surface clothes. It is taken prior to the men going underground, as they look clean and tidy, with some still wearing ordinary headgear. Also there are lots of candles in evidence that they will need underground. The older man on the right of the picture might be a Mine Captain. The earliest records of this mine show that it was being worked for copper in 1740, and probably earlier. It was nearly 300ft deep in 1746 and an extensive mine in 1778, when a section of its eastern part was published in Pryce's Mineralogis Cornubiensis. It closed ten years later, to reopen in 1799. In the next 120 years it became the largest and deepest mine in Cornwall, with its bottom level 3,000ft below the surface. Its output of copper and tin ores to 1788 is thought to have been no less than 1,2500,000, pounds, of which copper alone realised some 450,000 between 1740 and 1777. Between 1799 and 1920 its output amounted to over 9 million pounds, including income from sales of arsenic, silver and other minerals. The mine was in the dividend list for most of its working life, and shares, nicknamed 'Dollies', were the 'blue chip' of the industry. Photographer: Unknown.

© From the collection of the RIC

Tin dressing floor at Wheal Sparnon being turned into Victoria Park, Redruth, Cornwall. Late 1800s

A gentleman wearing a bowler hat is standing to the left of centre. The area in the photograph is now covered by Clinton Road, Park Road and Albany Road, Redruth. According to the Ordnance Survey Six Inch map Cornwall LXIII. NE, surveyed 1877 to 1879, the mine is disused at that time. By the same OS area map Cornwall LXIII. NE Revised 1906, the whole are is covered in housing. The mine produced copper, as well as traces of cobalt and gold. Thomas Spargo states in his book, The Mines of Cornwall (1865), that "Wheal Sparnon was in the the parish of Redruth, Cornwall, in 6,000 shares. Secretary, Mr G.H. Cardozo, London. Purser, Mr W.P. Cardozo, Camborne. Manager, Captain Wm. Tregay, Redruth. Rocks, granite and clay-slate, 60 men employed in the mine, operations on the surface of which commenced in 1864. Land owner, Lord Clinton. Dues 1-20th. Depth of adit, 18 fathoms; depth under adit, 60 fathoms. A 70-inch pumping-engine just completed, also a 22-inch winding-engine. Little has been as yet been done by the Company under the surface; but it is generally believed that enormous quantities of tin will be raised after the mine has been cleared of water". Photographer: Probably Henry Opie.

© From the collection of the RIC