China Clay works, Lantern Pit and Cleaves Pit, North Cornwall, April 16th 1914

BGS Image ID: P804212

Lantern Pit, North Cornwall, April 16th 1914

BGS Image ID: P804218

Cleaves Pit, North Cornwall, April 16th 1914.

China clay is a material called kaolin and was used to make fine white porcelain. The extraction of China clay in the St. Austell area was one of the great extractive industries in Cornwall.

Bob McIntosh

Pigs Eggs - Kaolinized Crystals of Orthoclase. Cleaves Pit, Caudledown, Cornwall.

BGS image ID: P804217

'Pigs Eggs' Kaolinized Crystals of Orthoclase. Cleaves Pit, Caudledown, Cornwall. Geologists' Association North Cornwall Field Excursion April 16th 1914.

Today, there is a Pig's Eggs Trail

From the Geologists' Association Carreck Archive.

Bob McIntosh

Granite dressing sheds at De Lank quarries, St. Breward, Cornwall

BGS image ID: P000510

Granite dressing sheds at De Lank quarries, St. Breward, Cornwall. Looking west-north-west.
The De Lank quarries work the coarse-grained, grey granites of Bodmin Moor. The extensive range of granite products on display in the De Lank dressing sheds is a tribute to the skills of the masons who originally worked this hard intractable stone with only limited hand tools. Since the 15th century granite has been used in buildings as hewn blocks and cut into ashlar. Also, up to about 1800, granite was taken from the vast amounts of surface debris. More recently there was demand for building blocks of ground 'reconstituted' granite where planning regulations demanded the use of stone. The De Lank Quarries near Bodmin produced a light grey granite. Large blocks were obtained from the quarries because of the regular jointing. The Eddystone, Beachy Head and Small Rock lighthouses are among many buildings constructed from De Lank granite.

Old BGS photograph number A00517

Date of image: 1907

Bob McIntosh

New Cook's Kitchen Shaft headgear, South Crofty Mine, Carn Brea, Cornwall

BGS image: P208023

New Cook's Kitchen Shaft headgear, South Crofty Mine, Carn Brea. Looking north-east, Cornwall. 

South Crofty Mine headgear. Ore is hoisted by self-dumping skip to the ore bin, left of the headgear, waste rock is fed into trucks and conveyed to the dump (left in foreground). The pump, made in 1873, has an unequal beam (10 feet stroke in the cylinder and 9 feet in the shaft) and plungers are 20 feet diameter down to 1,150 feet below the surface. The shaft is 340 fms. deep. The headgear of Robinson's Shaft (335 fms. deep) is seen on the right. The Carn Brea area embraces the northern slopes of the Carn Brea granite and the thermally metamorphosed killas and greenstone that overlie the northern flank. Practically all fissures in the area have yielded copper in the upper levels with tin beneath to a proved depth of 2,500 feet.  Date of image: 1945. BGS Old Photograph number A08101. Photographer: Jack Rhodes.

Bob McIntosh