Mining in Cornwall

Around St. Just, as well as in Charlestown, and all over the north side of Cornwall, and in some of the south(!), they used to mine clay (Charlestown only, methinks) and tin. According to Wikipedia, mining took place here from the Bronze Age until 1998. Copper, arsenic, silver, and zinc were mined here, too--arsenic, yikes. There was an offer just outside St. Just to tour a "cleaned" arsenic mine.

The tall chimneys fed engines that fed pumps, to keep the mines dry. That's what Vic says, anyway. We encountered a pump house described as "Cornish" when we toured the U.P. of Michigan in the 1990s.

See the tall spire on the right? That's a chimney. The foreground is part of a very hilly golf course.


Same spire, different (closer) view.


Below is a Cornish pump house--pic the work of Vic, who does not bother to line things up when using my iPad. It had a chimney that the angle and sun must have obscured.


Seriously, we have seen lone chimneys EVERYwhere, and pump houses in a good many places, too.

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