Circumnavigation of Caradon Hill - again.

We've done this walk many times and it never pales as it's got a little of everything. Panoramic views throughout and lots of history. This is an area that epitomises the 'boom and bust' nature of mining. The area we go through was, until around 1837, devoted to moorland farming and then, boom, minerals were discovered and many mines opened. The population exploded and settlements like Pensilva, Darite and Crows Nest were developed. Jump forward just fifty years and the mines were in terminal decline. Although they were in operation for a relatively short length of time, their impact on the landscape has been longer lasting.

This walk came in at just over 5 miles and was, as the map shows, a pretty straightforward circumnavigation of Caradon Hill. The route was, from the Hurlers Car Park in Minions, down the Gonamena Valley, around through the South Caradon mine complex to Tokenbury, then we follwed the lower arm of the railway to the Marke Valley complex, thence back up the Marke Valley to our starting point, with a slight detour to take in the Hurlers stone circle. All that with blue skies and no rain.

To keep costs down during construction, granite from the quarry at Cheesewring was used for sleepers on the original mineral railway rather than wood, which would have been in short supply in these parts. Although the granite sleepers were extremely hard-wearing, they had a tendency to shift slightly in the ground after heavy rainfall. This, in turn, buckled the tracks and led to frequent derailments and lots of maintenance.

Ponton's Piece, a pair of cottages that probably predated the railway. The outbuildings were used for stabling for the horses working the railway. One of these (cottages not horses) was occupied when we first walked these parts but decay has now set in and the roof is collapsing. If you look closely at the map inset, you'll see that this is incorrectly marked as 'Pontus Peace'.

Now this is what I call a 'retro-kitchen'. That dresser looks as if there's still some life left in it.

Still life with iron kettle, axe head and thermometer casing. An eclectic collection of artifacts.

At the end of each working day, the heavy, loaded carts would begin their steep descent, with a brakeman on each to keep their speed below the limited 12mph.  In 1859, it is documented that there were 27 brakesmen working on the railway.
As a mineral railway, the carriages were not legally allowed to carry passengers. However, realising there were plenty of keen sightseers, wishing to travel by rail up to see The Hurlers stones and the rock formations at The Cheesewring, the Liskeard and Caradon Railway quickly found a loophole. On Sundays, when the mines and quarries were not working, they would offer to carry passengers at no charge, but would charge them to transport their hats and baggage. These ‘free’ Sunday excursions were documented in the West Briton newspaper as early as 1850, and by all accounts continued into the 20th century.

This stack is associated with an engine that drove 'stamps' which crushed ore as part of the processing operation. In the distance, across the valley, is the stack associated with Eliot's Shaft in the West Caradon Mine complex. The valley floor at this point was a large flat, paved area called the spalling floor. Here large rocks from the mines were broken down into smaller pieces, initially with large spalling hammers and then into even smaller pieces with cobbing hammers. And then the broken pieces went on for further processing. At one time, this area would have been covered in some fashion. This was a very labour-intensive operation, especially when the ore was copper-containing. Large numbers of people would have been employed, including women and children. It's hard to imagine how busy this spot would have been and how noisy and smoky.

The stack at Rule's Shaft, with, fortuitously, a buzzard riding the thermals coming off Caradon Hill. The ruins of the pumping house associated with the stack are in the right foreground.

A tecnicolour sheep, either expressing support for the NHS or, perhaps, the local ovine members of the LGBTQ community.

A pumping engine house at the Marke Valley mine. It's not an area that we know at all and we'll have to return to get a better idea of how everything fits together. That this is a pumping engine house is evidenced by the remaining thick 'bob' wall upon which rested the main beam and evidence for a shaft on the other side of the wall.

One of the three remaining stacks on this site. My guess is that there is a large wheelpit in front of the stack and I'm thinking that this may have housed some winding gear for a nearby shaft. Of course, I could be completely wrong. We really need to go back with a decent site map.

The Salisbury Shaft, open and quite deep, with its associated pumping engine house to the left. Is it dangerous in this state? Of course. Should it be capped? Of course not. Should it have a more secure fence around it? Possibly, but I'm not too fussed about that. I've got a fairly relaxed attitude to these things. In a county with around 300 miles of dangerous coastline, the risks posed by a few holes in the ground are not something that excites or alarms me. I may be in the minority thinking this way but that's my view and I haven't fallen down one yet.

A buddle just downhill of Wheal Jenkin, the Marke Valley at the top of the valley. It was used for processing tin and was probably one of a series involved in the purification of tin.

This schematic shows how the buddle works. A slurry of raw material is directed towards the centre of the domed centre and this trickles down and particles sediment, according to how much tin they have in them. The heaviest, with the most metal, sediment out faster and closest to the centre. Lighter particles, with less metal, travel farthest from the centre and sediment out more slowly. To stop channelling of the sediment, a set of brushes, powered by a waterwheel, rotate and spread out the sediment. Depending on the make-up of the slurry, it may well take passage through one or more buddles to get material that was pure enough. Buddling in this way was an intermittent process as, at some stage, the sediment in each buddle had to be dug out; the high purity fraction retained and the remains removed and dumped.

A  marker post that took us a while to decipher: MPBAW AM standing for Ministry of Public Buildings and Works Ancient Monument. It refers to the nearby Hurlers Stone Circle.

Walking back to the car with a lovely sky in front of us. An end to another very pleasant day.