Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Much has been written about the celebrated metal mines of Devon southwest England from which tin copper silver lead iron and other ores have been won but in this book I focus attention on the less well known but perhaps even more fascinating non-metal mines of the county. There are a remarkable number and variety of these mines dug to exploit a wide range of rather surprising materials. They include the slate mine at Penn Recca near Buckfastleigh in south Devon; the ‘culm’ mines of north Devon – the county’s only ‘coalfield in miniature; the whetstone mines of the Blackdown Hills in east Devon: the Beer Stone mines also in east Devon; the ball clay mines of south and north Devon; and the lignite (brown coal) mines of Bovey Tracey south Devon. Most of these mines are now forgotten and little evidence remains of their former importance. Information about them is tucked away in many scattered and sometimes difficult to find places and until now nothing has been written about them in one accessible book. The materials dug from these mines have been extraordinarily variable. Just to take a random and incomplete selection they have yielded roofing slates whetstones for sharpening scythes and other tools building stones clay for ceramics lignite for fuel and chemicals and culm for burning as a fuel and for the manufacture of paint. A type of culm has even been used in the manufacture of mascara!