Surface Mining - Gazetteer - Devon (Morwell Down)

The information presented here was developed as part of long-term research by the author into the history and archaeology of mining in West Devon and East Cornwall. It should be treated as 'work in progress' and will be subject to change as time goes by. The initial documentary research was carried out by Dr Tom Greeves of Tavistock in his doctoral thesis of 1981 on the history of the Devon Tin Industry.
My work builds on this, but looks more extensively at the field evidence and attempts tentative identifications of named workings, based on a variety of documentary sources.

This list, which is probably not exhaustive, gives what information has been discovered to date regarding the known lodes crossing Morwell Down. Some of their eastwards extensions across the River Tavy are described where these are understood. The list should be read in conjunction with the Underground Mining page, which covers the exploitation of minerals on these lodes in the period after c.1700 AD.

The lode numbering system found on that page is also used here, although some mine setts contained several of these lodes. It should be noted that not all the lodes mentioned here are listed there too; where a lode is not mentioned, there are no known underground workings on its line.

The information presented here is gleaned from a variety of sources, all of which are quoted. I am particularly indebted to Fiona O'Connor for making information available from research she is currently carrying out into the earlier history of mining on the Down.

Primary sources for this research are:

• The Abandoned Mines Records (abbreviated to 'AMRs' in the gazetteer) owned by the Health & Safety Executive and held at the Devon Record Office in Exeter.
• The 1946 Royal Air Force aerial survey of Britain, the Devon photographs of which were taken from a height of 10,000 feet in Winter 1945-46. Monochrome prints of these are held at the Devon County Historic Environment Record at County Hall, Exeter. For ease of reference, these are mentioned in the gazetteer as '1946 RAF APs'.
• An additional source is provided by the Tavistock Canal Company Committee's annual reports from 1803 to 1821, documenting the discovery of lodes within the canal tunnel and their relationship with known ancient workings on the surface of the Down above. These are abbreviated below as 'CCCRs'.
• Charles Barclay's manuscript notes on Devon mines (Cornwall Studies Library, Redruth), made between 1918 and 1939 are also useful in recording workings not now accessible. He was notably involved in the clearance of part of an openwork in Hatch Wood (Lode 27) in 1933, recording an astonishing depth from surface of 45ft. for this probably 16th - 17th century gunnis. Barclay's notes on mines in West Devon have been published by Rick Stewart as 'Mines of the Tamar & Tavy' (Tamar Mining Press 2004).
• Information on surface workings in the Devon Great Consols and Bedford United setts has been gleaned from two survey reports of 2002 by Colin Buck for Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU). As this work primarily concentrated on 19th century mining remains, it is possible that much remains to be found, especially on the DGC sett, which the author has not yet explored in detail.