Teign Valley History Centre

Preserving our common cultural and historical heritage

Geology, mines and quarries - page 3

The Teign Valley’s Mining History

Early Years

There seems to be no evidence for mining in the Teign Valley much before the end of the 18th century. Judging by the documentary traces left by the mediaeval silver-lead mines elsewhere in Devon – on the Bere peninsula between the Tamar and Tavy, and at Combe Martin on the north coast, both active from about 1290 onwards when silver was a monopoly of the crown – had there been activity here we would know about it. Until 1845 such records as exist are partial and cannot always be tied to a particular site. It’s only after that year, when annual returns were required to be made, that it’s possible to be definite about the figures for production and the matching of output to mine. It is also in the nature of mining that signs of the earliest workings will tend to be obliterated by later work – the first efforts at winning minerals, often enough from open pits and shallow adits rather than from shafts, being subsequently overlain by more highly capitalised and better equipped attempts on the same sites. What can be seen on the ground is thus indicative of the last phases of activity. While buildings may have been demolished and materials and machinery removed for use elsewhere (or for scrap) the spoil heaps remain. These heaps give by their extent a measure of a mine’s success or failure. This is particularly so where the content of discarded toxic metals even now keeps encroaching vegetation at bay.

After years of abeyance, when Devon’s silver mines were all but forgotten and the supply of Dartmoor’s streamed tin had dried up, the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the second half of the 18th century began to both stimulate the need for minerals and provide the mechanical means for their more efficient extraction. The mines of the Bere peninsula were reopened in the 1780s, those at Combe Martin less successfully in 1813. The Bere mines were employing 1000 people in the 1850s and the most productive of them, South Hooe, yielded 326,300 oz. of silver in 30 years from 1845 – not a lot less than the entire output of the Teign Valley during that period (387,748 oz.).

The 1797 lease for the Kelly workings, in referring to a 'certain mine of black lead or some other substance', is perhaps indicative of the novelty of the business in this area, suggesting some vagueness as to what actually lay below the surface. Probably the lessee had a much better idea of the mineral in question than did the lessor. In any case, as prospectors prospected, speculators prepared to speculate and the first ripples of an altered future spread through the valley. In this atmosphere it’s unlikely that the presence of silver-lead would be overlooked or long ignored.

Christopher Schmitz (The Teign Valley Silver-Lead Mines 1806 – 1880) dates the first Teign Valley lead mine to around 1806, encouraged by the unusually high market price of the mineral in that year. This was Wheal Prosperous (later to be Hennock Mine). Its first life was a short one and its name never became appropriate. The mine closed in 1808, its promoter John Webb recorded as being in prison in the same year. In following years interest in local sources of manganese had been aroused by the exhaustion of deposits in the valley of the Creedy. It had first been worked at Upton Pyne, north of Exeter, in 1770 under John Gullet of Exeter. The mine here and two smaller ones nearby at Newton St Cyres were for a time the only source of this mineral in the country. As they became worked out there was a migration of miners to the eastern side of the Teign Valley in the years 1810 to 1815 and the opening of half a dozen small manganese mines in Ashton and Doddiscombsleigh. West of the river it was being raised from pits near the site of the later South Exmouth mine in 1816 and 1817. Its first known extraction in Christow parish was of 16 ton in 1821.

John Williams

Wheal Prosperous was reopened in 1812 by the now elderly John Gullet. It produced a modest 20 to 30 ton of lead p.a. until 1818, by which time the fall in metal prices consequent upon the ending of the Napoleonic Wars had rendered it unprofitable. It was operational again between 1836 to 1840 when the market was again favourable (and as Hennock Mine was to have further lives), but a mile or so north along the lode there was greater success. Here John Williams of Scorrier took over a pre-existing lease and opened, or reopened, what was known as the Canonteign Mine in 1828, its original shaft only 30 yards west of the dwelling house at Reed Farm. The Williams family were already prominent in mining and its associated activities in West Cornwall and had lately amassed great wealth from a copper mine at Gunnislake, so much so that the place for a time had the alternative name of Williams Town. John Williams, the third of that name, was a notable figure in his own right and brought to the venture both sufficient finance and deep knowledge of mining and metallurgy. Over the next dozen years, the mine drove down to 28 fathoms (fathom = 6 ft.) and yielded 100 to 150 ton of lead p.a. until activity was brought to a halt by the combination of a slack market and the death of Williams in 1841.

Why John Williams interested himself in this obscure corner of the mining world is a mystery, especially given that, born in 1753, he was already well into his seventies when he did so. Probably his involvement was mostly at arm’s length, but he was also the driving force behind another Christow venture in the same years. This was the source of the 2,460 tons of manganese recorded as having been produced by a mine in the parish between 1829 and 1841. The British Geological Survey tentatively places this mine at Hill Copse where there is evidence for mineral extraction in the form of adits driven into the hillside. Schmitz on the other hand says that the production probably came from a mine near Aller Farm, citing a lease granted by the Palk estate. The Christow Tithe Map of 1841 sheds no light on the matter. Because mining in the parish was by then nearly moribund and because abandoned workings occupying a small portion of a larger plot were presumably of no interest to the surveyor, the apportionment that accompanies the map gives almost no information about mines. It seems that the only trace of any mining activity recorded is the plot (565) containing Reed Farm house, which is described as ‘Homestead, garden and mine’, i.e., the Canonteign lead mine.

Further prospecting

For a few years after 1841 there was little or no mining activity in the valley, although interest in its possibilities was still alive. Then in 1844 Reed Farm to the southwest of Christow, together with its recently abandoned lead mine, was put up for auction by Ann Addems following the death of her husband Nathaniel. The auction notice stated that “Lead Ore of a superior quality has lately been found on the estate, and there is every prospect of the capability of Mines being worked thereon with great pecuniary advantage”.

The purchasers were the Hamlyn brothers of Bennah Farm, Christow who soon arranged leases with two companies – one to work the Canonteign mine, now renamed Wheal Adams though also known as Reed Mine, and the other to work ground immediately to the north under the name of East Wheal Friendship. Little more was heard of the latter venture, which probably occupied the site now known as Aller Mine on the northern edge of Reed’s land. Wheal Adams had some difficult years in which a new engine shaft was driven down to 50 fathoms amidst various technical problems, including soft ground at depth and the need for timbering to shore up the shafts. By 1849 it had reached valuable deposits of lead ore, at last heralding the Teign Valley’s years of mineral prosperity amidst a general increase in optimism. It was soon after this that the Christow Silver-Lead Mine was opened at Bennah – its dates are given as 1851 to 1853 – but no actual production was recorded. We first hear of attempts at mining in Bridford and Dunsford at around the same time. The Revd. Carrington, rector of Bridford, had recorded activity by prospectors on the Bridford side of the Rookery Brook, the boundary with Christow, at Stone and Venn Farms and South Wood (not to be confused with Southwood Farm, no great distance away in Christow parish) in the late 1830s. Nothing seems to have come of this until 1847 when the Wheal Ann Copper, Tin and Silver-Lead Mining Co. was set up to work deposits on Stone Farm, close to the site of the later Bridford Barytes Mine. Given the hopeless optimism or intentional fraudulence of the company’s title (tin is unknown in the valley, and in any case is seldom if ever found in association with copper) it is no surprise that the venture was not a success. A new company had another attempt in the same location in 1849 under the name Wheal Augusta. Within a year the Wheal Adams company had taken a controlling interest in this operation, the name changing to Bridford Consols, and activity increased as a result. Simultaneously a mine was developed at Birch Ellers, half a mile further north between Shippen and Neadon Farms. (19-Min-Bri-Not-00772) Despite much initial enthusiasm, heavy investment, and the exploitation of levels to a depth of 50 fathoms the silver-lead ores remained elusive. Both here and at Bridford Consols lead production was minimal while the barytes, present in large amounts, awaited its later industrial uses. Both mines shut in 1855, but Bridford Consols was to have another, very much longer lease of life after twenty years of abandonment.

At the northern end of the mineralised zone, where it turns to the north-west and comes to an end on the further side of the Teign, two mines were opened in an attempt to win the copper ores that were known to be present. The source turned out to be too meagre to be exploitable and lead too was scarce. Wheal Ann Maria, just across the river in Dunsford parish, sold nothing while Wheal Lawrence, south of the Teign in Bridford, produced just a few tons of lead. Both mines were closed by 1851.

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