The End of the Line

Eylesbarrow tin mine had a problem. Although the workings were relatively shallow, they inevitably filled with water which had to be pumped out. The earliest method for achieving this was a horse-drawn wheel. No doubt the mine owners looked enviously at Trevithick's Cornish beam engines, but more of that later. The major problem with Eylesbarrow is that it is close to the top of a bloody big hill with no power sources nearby. The solution to the pumping problem turned out to be a kilometre long flatrod system coupling a waterwheel in the Plym at the bottom of the hill to the pumps at the head of the shafts. The two inch square iron rods were supported on these twin granite pillars running up the hill. Free energy, what a good idea. 

And so we come to the end of Eylesbarrow's working life. The most valuable ore was extracted quite early in the life of the mine, but that was probably not the biggest economic problem. Every time the mine went bankrupt and closed down, along came another speculator to reopen it. As time went by, their business plans relied less and less on extracting and selling tin than on extracting money from investors by turning Eylesbarrow into a get rich quick scheme. This is the reason there were six stamping houses and sorting floors and two smelters at Eylesbarrow - a mine which in no way justifies infrastructure on this scale. Each successive mine owner decided to build one or two new stamping houses to extract more money from the investors. 

In 1847 a new company, Dartmoor Consols, reopened the mine. No tin seems to have been marketed despite this work and for want of capital the company ceased in 1848. By 1851 the name had been changed to Wheal Ruth by a new company but by January 1852 all work had stopped again. The mine was sold but part of it, renamed Wheal Katherine, continued to mine ore until October 1856. By this stage building new stamping houses wasn't enough draw to attract investment, so the new scheme relied on magical thinking about technology to bamboozle the unwary and separate them from their cash. Steam, the epitome of the Victorian era. The gurt big fools built a bloody steam engine at the top of a hill on Dartmoor in a failing tin mine. The cost closed Eylesbarrow for ever. 

And yet, at Eylesbarrow the cassiterite is still lying around on the ground waiting to be picked up. If you invest just £1.5bn in my new venture I will give you a part share of my new company, Eylesbarrow Sustainable Mining Corporation. We will use emerging technologies (either solar driven robots running around the hill picking up the ore and extracting tin by microdissection with lasers, or by training crows with food rewards to pick up ore and fly it over to a solar furnace in Tavistock - I haven't quite decided yet - which sounds most plausible?). 

Capitalism. There has to be a better way. 


Sony ILCE-7RM2 
Samyang 14 mm F2.8 
f16 ISO 100 
5 stop HDR.