On Christmas Day 1724 Sir Francis Vyvyan of Trelowaren leased a decayed stamping mill in Trewellard to Sibella Hichens, John Ustick and John Dennard. The property was known as Sir Vyell's Stamps......

Henric Kalmeter visited Penzance on 25th and 26th November 1724. He's often described a a spy, albeit of the industrial variety. Be that as it may, his journal provides detailed insights into a world which was undergoing some fairly big changes.

The name Batten had been synonymous with Levant since the reopening in 1820 but in 1849 John Batten IV brought the association to an end.....

There's something fishy about the closure and reopening of Levant Mine in 1871, and it's nothing to do with being under the sea..............

The second worst accident in the history of mining in Cornwall happened at Levant Mine on 20^th October 1919. Thirty one men were killed and 19 were recorded as injured when the Levant man engine rod crashed down the shaft carrying with it its human cargo of miners coming up to grass from the morning core.

The St Keverne gold rush: Ballarat expert forecasts bright future.

On the 9th October 1821 Joseph Carne presented a paper to the Annual Meeting the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall on the Mineral Productions and the Geology of St Just. The paper included the first mineralogical map of the St Just Mining District.

100 degrees fahrenheit, high humidity, low oxygen, quarter of a mile out under the Atlantic ocean and about 1500 feet beneath the ocean floor. Why would anyone want to go to such a place...............

Between 1498 and 1508 the itinerant Stannary Court at Lelant registered at least 10 St Just tinbounds. While an Cruen ton Gwynn was registered on 3^rd September 1502.

Susanna Trevorrow was a bal maiden who was crushed to death when a mine burrow collapsed on her in August 1854.

On 18^th August 1663 Charles II issued letters patent to”appointe our Towne of Pensanse within our said stannery of Penwith and Kerrier in our said County of Cornwall to bee from henceforth for ever one of the Coynage Townes…..”

One of the richest tin mines in Cornwall is near Penzance and lies under the sea, which is excluded by iron funnels, or shafts rising above the level of high-water…..(Sherborne Mercury 13 August 1792)

On 5 August 1836 the West Briton advertised the sale of Wheal Cock Mine, St Just, drained by a water pressure engine with a 40 fathom head of water.

Miners in St Just have a tradition of doing a bit of fishing to help put food on the table but a man who can find his way around underground in virtual darkness can be hard pressed on an ebb tide in a thick fog and so it proved for four pards fishing out of Priests Cove......

Tin dressing floors could be hazardous places and required an adult attitude from the children and young people who provided much of the work-force......

High on the windswept moors of West Penwith isolated Ding Dong Mine has accumulated its share of myth and legend. So old it was commonly believed that Christ had been there as a boy, so deep you could hear Australian church bells if you listened by one of the many shafts. But Ding Dong would not get any deeper............

Blasting in mines was a dangerous business, especially if Bickford's safety fuse was not being used.........

The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 was quickly followed by the restoration of the stannaries and a new Lord Warden. 

who was the unfortunate Richard White who was buried in 1840?

The miners from the western mines assembled at Penzance to endeavour to get corn and flour sold to them at a reduced rate. John Tregerthen Short, St Ives 27 May 1847

Reinhold Angerstein was considered to be an industrial spy, no surprise then that he visited Cornwall in 1754 and made a special point of a visit to St Just.

It's the late 19th century, mining in west Cornwall is in a terrible depression. Many men have left the county and some of those who remain and in work are not being paid.......

Levant mine reopened in November 1820 after being closed for about 25 years. It was to remain open virtually without interruption until 1930 and the first sale from the newly reopened mine was made on 12 April 1821.

On the 6 April 1883 the Royal Cornwall Gazette carried an advertisement dated 22 March 1883. The advertisement was for The Lamb and Flag Smelting Works, otherwise known as Treloweth.

At the itinerant stannary court which met at Lelant on 20 March 1498 two tinworks in Truthwall, While an Woth and le Neue Worke were registered................

The last sentence of Cyril Noall's history of Botallack Mine reads, Rodda's Almanack tersely records that Botallack Mine closed on March 14^th 1914, just five months before the outbreak of the first World War.

Raymond Harry is better known as Jack Penhale, author of The Mine Under the Sea, an account of his days at Levant Mine between 1917 and 1921. Raymond/Jack worked at Levant when the disaster took place on 20 October 1919.................

On 4 March 1863 Richard Trevorrow, a miner previously of St Just, came before the West Penwith justices to sue Captains Carthew and Wearne of St Just United Mine for non-payment of his wages.........................

On Tuesday last sennight the last day of February Mr Trevannion of Carhease and Mr Kenipt, Sir Robert Carey's man, Mr Slader with 7 or 8 men came in the copper mines at St Just and took all the tools from the workmen by inventory and said they should work no more...........

......the purser had just declared a profit of £2357 for the quarter with a dividend of £10 per 200^th share.

The closure of Geevor Mine in 1990 brought to an end over 3000 years of mining history for  the Pendeen and St Just district. Though not unexecpected, the end, when it came, was sudden, swift and final.

History, it is said, repeats itself. Be that as it may, today's proceedings were somewhat reminiscent of occurrences in the “Hungry Forties,” when St Just miners marched to Penzance.

Cyril Noall describes the collapse as "perhaps, the largest ever known in the neighbourhood. At surface, the effects resembled a minor earthquake."

On 10th January 1893 about 40 men and boys were underground, having descended the Cargodna Shaft which lies part way down the cliff below the Wheal Edward engine house. A cross-cut was being driven at 65 fathoms, at 8.45am charges were fired.............

We tend to suppose that people in the past didn't really have holidays, but maybe that isn't true…. On 8th January 1856 the Reverend Henry Usticke wrote to his brother William, who lived in London, to report on local news including William's mining interests around St Just......