This is Wheal Maid Tailings Lagoon – one of the many Cornish mining areas.

A brief history – between 1976 and 1981 – the land was owned by Cornwall Tin and Mining Ltd and then Billiton Minerals UK Ltd, there are two lagoons separated by three dams.  They were used to take grained mineral waste from the mill facilities at Mount Wellington tin mine.  The land is now owned by Carrick District Council and is open to the public.

The Environmental Agency were asked to carry out a assessment on the area after it was suggested that it could be causing failings in Quality Standards under the Dangerous Substances Directive in the local stream.  The investigation found four main soil types at the site and identified the following chemicals:  Arsenic; Cadmium; Chromium; Copper; Iron; Lead; Nickel; Zinc.

None of these pose a significant risk due to their low levels although the risk may come to those that stay in the area for too long wasting time trying to get a great shot of the water. :p The sun light plays a huge part in the colours that are seen along with the direction in which you are looking at it.  Either way its well worth sticking around this area and getting some photos.

If you would like further pictures or information, feel free to ask and I shall try my best to answer (I have plenty of photos)

Anyhow, even though I have been without computer, I have still been busy, firstly with the starting of a new project, to do with the tin mines of cornwall. I’ve started by trying to take some night shots of them, I’ve only done a couple of shoots and I’m still practicing, and trying to decide what angle I’m going for. This image is my favourite so far, although I was using a FX camera with a DX lens and forgot to zoom out for this one, so the lens is visible in the edges, I still like it best. I’ve had very little experience with night photography before but its something I want to practice a lot more, though clear skies have been very rare recently. This photograph was taken at Wheal Coates tin mine, at Chapel Porth, North Cornwall, it was extremely windy and my tripod actually fell over at one point, so I decided it was time to leave, I will revisit it again with a sturdier tripod next time!

Today, I have been in London, and visited the Ansel Adams exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich, if you get the opportunity I would definitely suggest visiting this - http://www.rmg.co.uk/visit/events/ansel-adams

I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like or appreciate Adams’ work, even those who aren’t photographers often really enjoy his work. The exhibition has some really huge prints which really puts into perspective the quality and detail of his transparencies. The landscapes he photographs are so so beautiful, and the time and effort he went to to perfect one print really shows the passion and love he had for photography. 

Unsurprisingly, this has also inspired me to try again at 5×4 photography, something that I have not been so good at in the past. Its hard, and so much more expensive than digital, but so rewarding when you get it right. So thats one of my aims for the next year or so – take some good 5×4 photographs! 

Winters’ whip, she blew foul today,
She bit through to the bone,
She licked the flesh upon my frame,
And turned it into stone.

And riding on her tempest mare,
The rain sure did come in,
It spat and snarled, and didn’t care,
Whether good, or stoked with sin.

The sun I haven’t seen for days,
No warmth has blessed my brow,
The sky a quilt of matching greys,
above a bed so barren now.

In eternity earth lay sodden,
All brown where once was green,
All thought of summer forgotten,
This is the time of in-between.

I live in Cornwall, which is right at the end of that big ‘sticky out bit’ you see in the bottom left of maps of the UK. Because you are never far from the sea here, it rarely snows in winter. Maybe once a year tops, Instead it justs piddles down with rain instead. While the rest of the country is thrashing around in the white stuff, we paddle in the wet stuff, soaking up envy along with wetness.

And so it has happened again. We have a cold snap and everywhere but Cornwall currently has a decent covering of snow. National news reports are dominated by people sledging when they should be working, and school kids with bonus days of,f grinning like the snowmen they have just created. Meanwhile, down here, we have to put up with the local TV people sending some poor sod with a microphone, high up onto the moors, to be filmed pretending an inch of wet snow is the onset of the next ice age. And then, as always, they finish off with ‘and there is more to come’ when anyone who has seen the forecast will no that it is in fact a band of rain heralding a return to our normal wet and windy dosage.

I pray for snow. Being a keen photographer it’s arrival is like the excitement of getting a new car. The only problem with is that this car disappears before your very eyes. You have to rush around trying to gather as many pictures as you can, before it starts to melt. Down here this is normally within an hour or two! This brings me to the picture above. It was taken about four years ago when I lived in Penzance, which is about as far to the end of Cornwall (and the UK) as you can get. There was no snow as I looked out of the bedroom window, but it was cold. Therefore I thought I would drive up onto the moors, which being slightly elevated, might have a covering. After about 15 minutes, I was on the top of our little world, and there was nothing at all. However, looking out to sea, there clearly was a heavy deluge of something working it’s way to the shore, so I headed the two miles down the hill, to the coast.

By the time I got there, I was in a different world, and I greedily harvested as many shots as I could, of subjects I had photographed in all lights and at all angles, but never with a covering of snow. It was pretty miserable with the wind smacking a mixture of snow and sleet into my face. I kept my camera tucked inside my coat, and with the lens pointing downward as much as possible to avoid droplets. Most of the results were pretty flat, to be quite honest. However, this one shone through, simply because the sun managed to make a cameo appearance.

After about an hour of running around I was soaked and it was time to go home. I went back in the afternoon, once I had dried off, but it had all melted…no surpise there I guess!

The subject is Levant Tin Mine. It closed in the first half of the last century, and is now in the custody of the National Trust. The engine house with the roof still on it, houses an old steam engine built for winding loads of ore up from the deep. This has been restored to working order.

If you would like to see more of my pictures of snow in Cornwall, taken over the last five years CLICK HERE.

Poetry,photograph,and text copyright Colin Ward 2013.

However, only a few would know that the harbour was once served by the railway. Indeed, if you even suggested this, I would suspect that your observation might well be challenged, for it is impossible to contemplate. The port is set at the foot of a cliff and approached by a windy and steep road, that many struggle to deal with on foot, let alone a train being able to get out of the waterside. But it is a fact, and indeed a testament to the skill of the 19th century engineers, in this part of the world,  who seemed capable of brushing aside any hurdle in their way. Show them the postcard below, and when compared with the more recent picture, as there will be no argument.

So why would they want to do it? The reason lies in the massive industrialisation of Cornwall based on its mineral wealth. Most visitors know there were tin mines in Cornwall. Many will have a hunch that china clay comes out of the ground here as well, on seeing the almost alpine white spoil heaps, visible for many miles, that are dumped right in the middle of the Duchy of Cornwall. To harvest these riches coal had to come in to drive the tin mine pumps and lifts that rocked inside the stone engines houses that dot the Cornish countryside. And once the clay was out of the ground, it had to got away to the potteries of Staffordshire and elsewhere.

The speed of the industrial growth was very rapid, and local entrepreneurs were quick to seize on any opportunity. Some were more successful than others. The fact that this one is no longer evident unless you know what you are looking for probably indicates that it was not one that stood the test of time, as well as some, although it was not a disaster. Indeed, by todays standards it would be considered almost an epic. Construction started in 1845, and it finally commenced operation in 1849.

In order to tackle the small issue of the harbour being at the bottom of the cliff, a 96 yard tunnel was sunk down to it, at an incline of 1 in 4.5 which is pretty steep for a railway. To give you an idea of this, take a pencil and place one end on your table. Lift the other end one inch higher. Wagons were hauled up or down, by means of a cable, initially using horses to power the winding apparatus, and later, two stationary steam engines. These once occupied the site of what is now Morrisons supermarket. The tunnel entrance at the quay end of things is still visible, as demonstrated in the picture below. It is now a store, although for a while it housed to town’s aquarium.

Between the top of the incline, and the site of the modern day railway station, wagons were hauled by horses, through the centre of Newquay. A good part of this route is evident to this day as a well used pedestrian walkway, marked by a memorial plaque courtesy of the local council. Unfortunately the quaintness of the harbour, that makes it so popular today, was it’s downfall. As ships got larger it simply could not deal with them, which was not the case with the ports on the South Cornish coast, which still ply their trade as I write this. By the early 1920′s traffic had subsided to a trickle and the tramway was officially closed in 1926.

I find this little piece of history interesting because, once you know about it, you can relate what is left to it, where before I learnt this, I had no idea.

The show is a selection of photographs taken whilst out walking the coastal path, moors, or simply wandering around Penzance and St Ives. They cover a ten year period using a variety of digital cameras.

The earliest camera was a Kodak DC210 with a wopping 1mp resolution. Although primitive by todays standards, at the time it was quite a thing, and not cheap either. As the years rolled by I thrashed to death an Olympus 2100, and a Minolta Dimage 7. These were bridge cameras, and I did not move over to DSLR’s until the advent of the Fuji S2, and then a Fuji S5, both with an economical but OK Sigma 18-200 zoom.

I now use Canon Pro equipment, which I bought to move more into wedding photography (didn’t happen due to health issues and not wanting to let people down) but I do miss the freedom of lighter equipment.

CLICK HERE to view the slideshow

Hot day turned fresher in the evening and the sunset never really happened. We first walked to the top of St Agnes Beacon. The heather and gorse was not quite out. We had hoped to photograph the cliffs adorned with purple bell heather and yellow western gorse. The view from the beacon towards St Ives is wonderful. Not only was the show of flower disappointing but there was also a lot of mist about. I did manage this shot of the beacon looking inland rather than along the coast. I am hoping to come back in a couple of weeks time when the display should be wonderful.

Bell Heather and Western Gorse on St Agnes Beacon

We moved towards the headland and Wheal Coates Tin Mine. The mist and cloud worked together to give the sky a very pastel appearance. Below is a photo trying to show this effect. I am not sure it has worked. Difficult to take as the camera was pointing straight at the sun. I could have made the photo more dynamic and contrasty in photoshop but wanted to convey the soft effect I was seeing. This is not an HDR photo but a blend of two exposure; one for the sky and one for the land.

Setting sun at Wheal Coates

As I said earlier the sunset did not happen. Below are two photos of the most famous engine house at Wheal Coates, The Towanroath Shaft Engine House. The first photo is a vertical panoramic of two images taken about 10 minutes after the sun went down.

Wheal Coates Tin Mine

For this second shot I had walked a bit further down the cliff. This was taken just as the sun was going down.

Wheal Coates Tin Mine

Wheal Coates dates from the 1870s, and was finally abandoned in 1913.  Nearly a hundred years on, the site looks fragmented, as if the cliff had been bombed. Three engine houses still stand, their roofs lost long ago, their tips tinged back into life with the green of moss.  All have cavities where windows should be: the tallest engine house has an uppermost window-hole that frames for me a patch of heavy sky.  Elsewhere are low strips of wall, which, to my ignorant eyes, seem randomly built and abandoned half way through.  The National Trust information board gives these fragments sinister sounding names: Calciner, Boiler Pond, Dressing Floor.  Still, hundreds of people understood this land and used to come to this very spot to work in a world far beneath my feet.  Men died down there, dying of injuries and landslides; many drowned in the dark. 

It is the wailing of the drowning miners that you are meant to hear at Wheal Coates, coming up the mineshaft.  I don’t see the shaft at first: I am too easily distracted by the colour of the stone that has been used to build the various walls.  Blood red, with the occasional streak of white.  It’s not noticeable at a distance, but up close, parts of Wheal Coates look as if they were built from slabs of red meat; gristly steak.  More of the same stone covers the ground and paths: scattered off cuts.  I slide a couple in my pocket, wiping the wet from my fingers onto my sleeves.   

The mineshaft is covered with a metal grid, splitting its disturbing darkness into small, manageable oblongs.  In one corner, part of the grid has been stretched and widened, creating a hole large enough for a dead miner’s forearm to reach out and grab a foot.  Not really knowing what I am doing, I pick a stone out of my pocket and toss it into the shaft to gauge its depth.  Poorly thrown, or swept off course by the wind, it clatters on the shaft’s sides as it falls, creating echoes and thus revealing nothing.  I reach for my other stone but as I do, the wind mimics my actions, tossing rain into my face and whipping my hair.  For the rest of my time on the cliff, it seems to pursue me, howling within the engine houses when I step into them.  It knows the stones better than I do, and uses them to create unusual sounds.  On one occasion, it creates a sound close to my feet that makes me stop still.  Like it knows of an  underground cavity, and is sweeping through it.

It doesn’t spook me at the time, because I assume there is a rational explanation for what I hear. But replaying it in my mind after I have come away makes my spine grow cold.  So, too, does the stone that I find in my pocket, days later, whilst searching for something else.  Now dry, its colour has paled to an anaemic pink.  It is almost as if it has been drained of something, and I wonder whether the colour slowly changed, unseen in my pocket, the further I took it away from its cliff.  

When I saw this as we travelled along in the car I realised that I actually hadn’t taken a photograph of any (or maybe only one or two) of these and so I thought it was about time I added one to this photo journal.

Original photograph taken by me - copyright 2012

These old engine houses of Tin Mines are dotted about around Cornwall.  Sadly the Tin Mine industry is finished here but these buildings always look so interesting and wherever they are, there was always a lot of activity going on with the mining.

Paul worked in the Tin Mines for over 20 years, as did many of his ancestors.  As someone who loves history and genealogy, seeing these engine houses for me is always of great interest.

(It’s a shame the telegraph wire somewhat cuts across this pic)!!

]]> http://mysaffronbun.com/2011/11/17/a-bleak-day-at-south-crofty/ Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:11:02 +0000 cornishlad http://mysaffronbun.com/2011/11/17/a-bleak-day-at-south-crofty/

Retired Miner at mine closure - South Crofty

“Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish lads are miners too,  but when the fish and tin are gone, what are the Cornish boys to do?”

This ‘graffiti’ was written along the exterior wall of South Crofty not long after it closed down in 1998.  South Crofty was one of Cornwall’s oldest and largest mines which opened in the 1590′s. For several decades, up until 1860s copper was the only ore mined at South Crofty in shallow workings (down to approx 80 metres) The mine was dependent on copper until its reserves were exhausted and in 1873 after much financial investment in new machinery the mine was operating  significantly deeper (approx 480 metres) where only tin was found.

Mining provided a great deal of employment in Cornwall and South Crofty in particular was the main employer for many men in the Camborne and Redruth area. Sadly with tin being imported at a cheaper price than UK mines could supply the tin many mines closed down around the county and South Crofty was the last to close in 1998.

As a student I managed to get into the mine shortly before it closed down and took some pictures both underground and on the surface. I would have been one of the last non workers to have gone underground and for this I was very grateful of the experience. I have some more images I will share at a later date on the miners but for now please enjoy this gritty black ane white.

On a positive note South Crofty became operational again in 2007 with plans to extract further tin, copper and zinc.

To read more about the company who made South Crofty a viable mine again please click here.

Original photograph taken by me - copyright 2011

It was really the littlest tin mine next to the sign that caught my eye, how sweet and with an ornament in one of the windows!!

I was actually going to post a close-up pic of the littlest tin mine but the WordPress gremlins are still very active.  The above photo came above all the text again, grrrr!  Which meant a bit of fiddling about to get it into the right place.  If I try to add another photo I know from the gremlins’ behaviour the last couple of days I posted, that the second photo will go to the top, out of order and I will then have to shift everything to get it all in the right place.

As I am posting for two days now, it will take too long to juggle about on both posts, so no pic of the close-up today!    Sorry about that.   I just hope WordPress get this sorted out quickly, it is making things very difficult.

I had spent the day looking at the sun from the inside out and I was dying to dip a toe in the water, but I wanted to go to a different beach than our closet one, so I drove randomly around Cornwall following hunches and country lanes.

I got HOPELESSLY lost.

I mean lost in the kind of stop-the-car-and-climb-up-on-a-wall-to-see-if-I-could-see-a-familiar-landmark VERY VERY LOST kind of way….

At first I started to get tetchy and fretful as the sun was sinking down and I was inching down country lanes with hedges so high, it was like driving through a tunnel….but then I eventually gave up on the idea of beach and settled into the adventure…

I discovered  hidden lanes

and dandelion clocks

….

and then just as I got even more lost and had begun to wonder if I should just get back on the MAIN ROAD, I turned a corner and pop.

I was in a forest – with the sun setting and the golden light it looked magical

The smell of wild garlic started to make me think of garlic bread and risotto….

…… so I headed back in the direction I had come in…

and drove past the lamas

and the old tin mines

….and home….

for garlic related food

Tomorrow I am going to go to a beach, only this time I am going to have a glance at a map before I go….or maybe not…

♥ Rebekah

]]> http://ravikhokharia.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/will-silver-surge-following-the-nationalization-of-bolivia%e2%80%99s-silver-mines/ Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:33:33 +0000 ravikhokharia http://ravikhokharia.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/will-silver-surge-following-the-nationalization-of-bolivia%e2%80%99s-silver-mines/ http://bananachinese.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/in-malaysia-politics-it-pays-to-be-clear-be-very-very-clear/ Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:17:36 +0000 bananachinese http://bananachinese.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/in-malaysia-politics-it-pays-to-be-clear-be-very-very-clear/