A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



Railway station is within a few yards of the 

 quarry banks where the slates are pitched, and a 

 siding runs into that part. Since the line was 

 opened to Wadebridge and Padstow all the slate 

 sent by water has been conveyed by rail and 

 shipped from one or other of those places. 



Lanterden Quarry is near Trebarwith Strand, 

 on the north side, in the parish of Tintagel. It 

 was opened more than two hundred years ago, 

 and judging from its size many men were em- 

 ployed when it was first opened, but for the 

 last sixty years only three or four have been 

 working there. A windlass worked by hand 

 is used for raising the slate to the surface, and 

 the top rock and waste are deposited in the old 

 workings. 



Lambshouse Quarry is also in the parish of 

 Tintagel, on the glebe there, and about half a 



mile south of King Arthur's Castle. It was 

 opened more than one hundred years ago, and 

 has been worked by different persons with vary- 

 ing success. It was closed for several years. In 

 1855 it was reopened, and has been worked 

 continuously since that time. The average 

 number of hands employed has been about 

 twenty, but at present the number is forty-two. 

 A steam engine and a horse-whim are used for 

 raising the slate, and the unproductive rock and 

 the waste are thrown over the cliff into the sea. 

 The shipments are made at King Arthur's 

 Castle, but some of the slate is also dispatched 

 from the London and South Western Railway 

 station at Camelford. The methods of raising 

 the rock and preparing the slate for the market 

 are the same as those which are adopted in 

 other quarries. 



TIN MINING 



The antiquity of British tin, 1 and the supposed 

 voyages to Cornwall of the Phoenicians, have 

 been too long the subject of antiquarian research 3 

 to need further elaboration. As the Isles of the 

 Cassiterides, Cornwall appears to have been 

 visited as early as 1000 B.C. 3 by Phoenician or 

 by Iberian or Gallic traders, 4 who acted as dis- 

 tributing agents for its tin throughout the known 

 world, some going even as far as the Indies. 6 

 Diodorus Siculus describes Britain as triangular. 

 The promontory nearest the mainland was 

 Cantium (Kent), that at the opposite extremity 

 Bolerium, and that turned toward the sea Orca. 

 The inhabitants of Bolerium were hospitable, 

 and, on account of their intercourse with 

 strangers, civilized in habits. They it was who 

 produced tin, which they melted into astraga/i, 

 and carried to an island in front of Britain called 

 Iktin, 6 a peninsula at low tide, where they trans- 

 ported the tin in carts from the shore. Here 

 the traders bought it and carried it into Gaul, 



1 ' The Antiquity of Mining in the West of Eng- 

 land,' by R. N. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. v, 133- 



135- 



2 For the more important treatises see Geo. Smith, 

 The Cassiterides ; R. Edmonds, On the Phoenician Tin 

 Trade with Cornwall ; ' The Tin Trade of Antiquity,' 

 by ' L,' Notes and Queries, 2nd series, v, 101 ; G. C. 

 Lewis, Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, 

 45-457> 481-482 ; 'The Sources and Supply 

 of Tin for the Bronze Tools and Weapons of An- 

 tiquity,' by J. Crawford, Trans. Ethnological Soc. of 

 London, iii, 350-356. 



3 Geo. Smith, The Cassiterides, 43. 



4 ' The Tin Trade of Antiquity,' by Hyde Clark, 

 Notes and Queries, 2nd series, v, 287 ; 'The Ancient 

 Cornish Tin Trade/ by C. D. Saunders, Rep. Roy. 

 Cornw. Polytechnic Soc. 1865, 4245. 



6 Geo. Smith, The Cassiterides, 23. 

 6 For the propriety of this name see R. Edmonds, 

 On the Phoenician Tin Trade with Cornwall, 8. 



across which it was taken on horseback in about 

 thirty days to Marseilles. 7 



Of the Romans in Cornwall no written re- 

 cords are extant, and it is doubtful if they 

 meddled with the mines there during their stay. 

 Great variety of opinion, however, exists on this 

 question. It certainly seems strange that the 

 Romans, aware of the richness of the tin mines, 

 and accustomed to dealing with other metals in 

 the same island, 8 should have neglected to exploit 

 the stannaries. But the few Roman remains in 

 Cornwall suggest trading posts only; 9 and although 

 some have professed to see traces of Roman occu- 

 pation in the circular earthworks surrounding 

 some of the old mines, 10 it is far more likely that 

 these were erected by the Cornish to guard their 

 secrets from alien traders. 11 



The Anglo-Saxon regime in England was, 

 until Athelstan's conquest of Cornwall in 937, 

 contemporaneous with the existence of an in- 

 dependent Cornish kingdom of native Celts, 

 under which the stannaries, although probably 

 hampered by the three-cornered struggle of 

 Saxon, Dane, and Briton, 12 continued in opera- 

 tion. Saxon ornaments and coins have been 



7 Diodorus Siculus, v, c. 21, 22. 



8 They are known to have worked the lead mines. 

 W. H. Pulsifer, Notes for a History of Lead, 27, 28 ; 

 Robt. Hunt, British Mining, 27 et seq. 



9 ' The Romans in Cornwall,' by Otho Peter, Journ. 

 Roy. Inst. Cornw. xv, 1 1 . 



10 ' The State of the Tin Mines at Different Periods 

 before the Eleventh Century,' by J. Hawkins, Trans. 

 Roy. Geo/. Soc. Cornw. iv, 72. 



11 'The Romans in Cornwall,' by Otho Peter, Journ. 

 Roy. Inst. Cornw. xv, 1 1 ; ' The Romans in Corn- 

 wall,' by J. B. Cornish, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. xiii, 

 pt. 4, 430-434 ; R. Polwhele, Hist, of Cornwall, \, 



I7S- 

 11 Lysons, Magna Britannia, iii, pp. xi, xii. 



522 



