Mother Cornwall's Legacy

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

aint Breward sits upon the history strewn shoulder of the ancient moor near Bodmin in North Cornwall, nestling amongst staggering scenery which is both desolate and wonderful bound together as one.

 Her legacy is at her very heart. The mighty granite. Great stones which remember the Bronze age men who toiled and stacked the moorland field stone and bear witness to the beginning of an incredible industry which was to change the face of a nation.

 St Breward's finest men methodically hewed the giant stone slabs and dragged them to the cutting sheds before hauling them to the rail head. Fortunes were to be won an lost here in St Breward as the crash of hammer on steel was carried on the wind.

 Over the centuries there have been over 25 different quarries in the area around St Breward. But only the De Lank Quarry still remains.
The others, from which the village, its parish church and countless architectural treasures emerged, now lie derelict and forboding, slowly returning back to nature. They are now a still and silent testament to the industry which supported the area and built a nation.

Relic of Tordown Quarry St Breward

Left: St Breward quarry men work of the granite face. C 1900

The St Breward Quarry:

 Tordown Granite in St Breward was first quarried by local men as the St Breward Granite Quarry and then took the name of its new local owner as Nankivell's Quarry.

Long closed now and derelict, its flooded pit mirrors the great swathes of stone it supplied the nation.

 The granite quarry at St Breward's primary function was to supply the building blocks for the re build of Bodmin's notorious Gaol back in the mid 1800's. But granite blocks from this St Breward source have built great bridges and cobbled our roads far and wide, giving rise to some of the most prominent architectural structures in the land.

  The great Naval College  at Dartmouth owes its character to St Breward stone and in Britain's capital, so does, London's County Hall, Transport House, the Esso Tower, the Shipping Office and most of the buildings in Paternoster Row. All owe their existence to St Breward stone, cut from here, dressed and shipped by transport provided by the rail head at Wenford Bridge. Now ironically, the start of the Camel trail, one of the most popular and picturesque nature trails used by cyclists and walkers in the country.

St Breward Quarry - Tor Down Quarry, St Breward, Cornwall

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

Royal Naval College Dartmouth

Bodmin Gaol (Bodmin Jail)

Click photo to go to more images of Bodmin Gaol.

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

emarkable St Breward has many a claim to fame, most of which which she can put down to its granite quarrying including the structures of ;

Tower Bridge, Putney Bridge the Thames Embankment and Blackfriars bridge. All built with St Breward granite.

 Eddystone lighthouse built by James Douglas and Bishops Rock lighthouse too owe there existence to St Breward as thousands of seamen owe St Breward their lives because of what she delivered up. Then there's Beachy head and the Needles lighthouses, each monumental structure reliant upon St Breward stone and its men.
There are the great dockyards upon which Britain relied built of St Breward stone from as far afield as Tilbury, Newcastle and Cardiff to the Pool of London. Bombay to Gibraltar, which all have huge structures which began here quarried in St Breward. Huge blocks of granite blasted from out of the arms of the moor, chisled and cut  by St Brewards best and traveled by the old tramway down the hill to Wenford Bridge station and on to Bradford's quay at Wadebridge on the Wenford Railway.

 St Breward is responsible for providing its fair share of stone for many famous monuments too.
  Winston Churchill sands his ground on St Breward stone hewn from the quarry here. The Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park and Karl Marx's statue too and perhaps the most respected of all monuments, the Cenotaph stands here and it's all because of St Breward.

Winston Churchill - St Breward Stone

The London Cenotaph photographed July 2010.

Photo courtsesy Allan Hillery.

St Breward's Bridges:

Wenford Bridge - St Breward

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward  Cornwall

Gam Bridge St Breward >

 Gam bridge spans both the Allen and Camel rivers at St Breward and was first built and named in 1613. The term Gam comes from the Cornish word 'bent' or twisted and is the derivation of the commonly used slang 'gammy leg' referring to the twisted limb of a person with rickets.

 In the great flood of  16th July 1847, which was caused by a freak waterspout which appeared on Davidstow Moor, the bridge was completely swept away along with all the other bridges on the Camel with the exception of Helland bridge and Wadebridge.

This fact is not surprising as the horrendous tide of water which swept down the Camel valley from the moor out stripped the recent Boscastle flood in August 2004 with a wave nearing 20 feet high.

The bridge was subsequently rebuilt out of local St Breward granite. Today t is a listed building of significant national interest which is why there is a weight limit imposed to the traffic it can carry.

It is listed as; 7 span bridge with unmoulded granite lintels and crude cutwaters. Stone rubble parapet with unmoulded granite coping.

1847

Gam Bridge St Breward spanning the rivers Allen and Camel:

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

Delford Bridge also known as Delfy Bridge and ford is built over the De Lank River near St Breward and is a huge

Clapper bridge made of St Breward granite.

A Clapper bridge is a Saxon word, cleaca, meaning 'bridging the stepping stones' is so named because it is formed

by using huge altar like slabs of granite supported on stone pillars.

One of the finest examples of clapper bridges to be found in Cornwall is here, over the De Lank river near St Breward.

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

^ Left: Bridge over the river Camel at Coombe Millhouse: St Breward

A listed building built of St Breward granite.

A 3 span road bridge with granite rubble piers and monolithic granite spans.

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

Bradford bridge

Bradford Clapper Bridge, near St Breward. Cornwall

One of 2 clapper bridges over the De Lank river here.

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall  >

estiges of North Cornwall's past abound here in and around the village of St Breward, but it was not only granite which the earth gave up as its prize.

 Tin Streaming in St Breward:

 Tin has been streamed here in the area around St Breward for centuries and the land around Bodmin moor held more precious materials which St Breward's entrepreneurs sought in  both ancient and modern times. Prehistoric prospectors worked here as did St Brewardians throughout the Middle ages in the search for tin.

 It is firmly believed that the Roman Garrison stationed at Nanstallon only eight miles distant from St Breward were installed there in the 1st century AD to supervise the tin works which were in operation in the area. This is more than likely connected to the issue of taxes to be applied to the product rather than to collecting the product itself!

Though mining tin was favoured in those times, tin streaming became an ever more popular way of obtaining the ore and was a common preoccupation in St Breward.

 Tin streaming is relatively simple operation and is accomplished by sieving silt and sand from the bottom of stream beds either by hand or mechanically using sluices and channels similar in effect to panning for gold.

By washing away the silt, any deposits of tin or can be extracted and collected ready to be crushed and smelted. The De Lank, Allen, Camel and other steams emanating from Bodmin Moor were all plundered for their tin content, with the local tin industry seen in the Middle ages as being second only to sheep farming and wool in particular as the main regional income earner.

 By the 1300's, Bodmin coinage, the name given to the process of assaying, weighing, testing and stamping of the pure tin collected here, was in effect and had been from early times through a charter granted to the town by King Richard I which allowed for the sheriff of Bodmin to literally coin his own money.

 From as early as the year 1200, French merchants were travelling to Bodmin to buy tin in great quantities from Bodmin market. With he Bodmin tinners producing more than 3 times more tin than any other area in Cornwall at the time, this shows the importance of the area and how tin contributed to St Breward's economy at the time.

Below: Photograph of the DeLank river, St Breward Cornwall Tin streaming workings along the banks.

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

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Evidence of Middle ages tin streaming on the

DeLank river, Cornwall

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

   Silver too, though in very in small quantities would be found here and serious attempts to extract copper were made in the 1800's to the north of St Breward's Church at Churchtown.

 In those days, the Mitchell family who lived at Hengar Manor, owned much of the land here around St Breward and they began operations back in 1845 by setting up a very grand sounding company called the Great Mitchell Consols. They began by sinking shafts deep into Mine hill which would become a hive of activity with all the trappings of a commercial mining enterprise in its day. But the locals hard work, cutting deep into the hill by hand and working in dreadfully cramped and dangerous conditions would be short lived.

The mine was abandoned in 1848 having produced only minimal amounts of copper ore  which made the Mitchell's just £500 by return for all their investment and efforts.

 Firmly held local belief, be it myth or by wishful thinking, was that St Breward's hill was yet to give up its mother load of Mundic and Copper & Fluorite too, a rarely found mineral held in high regard for its ornamental properties by Victorians who were keen to have Grottos in their gardens. So a new company, this time the Great Onslow Consols was founded, followed close on its heels by the even more splendid sounding St Breward Consols Great Copper Mining Company but it too, fizzled out after a few years of toil and tribulation and with little practical success. Other than from the Arsenic which was found here in minor quantities an sold on.

 All that is left behind here on St Breward' s picturesque hillside today are the old adits, capped off mine shafts and gorse covered depressions where once the settling tanks stood and a rather dishevelled heritage stone telling the story of how St Breward so nearly struck it rich.

 The consolation?

 Had Mitchell and Onslow's mine been successful, then today little would be left of this beautiful part of Cornwall and St Breward would be an industrial nightmare.

Mine Hill excavations. St Breward, Cornwall.  C1900                                                                                  Mine Hill excavations St Breward, Cornwall today.

Photograph © Jackie Freeman Photography - St. Breward – Cornwall

 China clay extraction has already been mentioned previously as having contributed to St Breward's more recent cultural and industrial past, with clay fields found to the north of the village at Stannon Downs begun & exploited just over a century ago.

 The operation here was and is huge. So was the market for the stuff back then and as such it wasn't surprising that great clay dries, huge buildings which contained under floor heating powered by giant furnaces were built. The one shown on the left is all that remains of the closest dry to Stannon. But the largest, Wenford Dries, built by the rail head at Wenford Bridge still stands today and has some remarkable local claims to fame. Some St Breward folk consider it to be the biggest single block structure in the world.

 That claim aside, Wenford dries is a bit of an eye sore these days, surrounded by barbed wire and a nightmare of asbestos and rubble. Little investigated by the holiday makers & nature lovers frequenting the Camel cycle trail which starts just over the road from it.

 Interestingly, English Heritage have the Wenford Dries listed as a building of special architectural importance, which undoubtedly will serve to make extremely difficult any attempt at redevelopment or alteration for the good of the area.

We continue with our journey with a look at more from St Breward.

Copyright: 2010 Jackie Freeman Photography St Breward Cornwall . All rights reserved

Unauthorized use of the images illustrated is prohibited and protected under international laws of copyright.