Coombe Arsenic Works
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MINING IN CALSTOCK PARISH
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| The Cinderella of the Tamar Valley mining activity is the production of arsenic. Arsenides and sulphides containing tin ore were initially burned off to atmosphere but in the early nineteenth century several uses were found for refined arsenic. From the 1860s, purpose built recovery units were constructed. One mine in the parish with a fully developed arsenic recovery plant was Okel Tor, but there were two large plants at Greenhill above Gunnislake and at Coombe in Harrowbarrow, which did not mine their own ore but brought in untreated arsenic ore or arsenic soot to be refined |
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Coombe Arsenic Works |
Although the principal silver/lead mines in the valley are in Bere Ferrers parish, a group of small mines west of Harrowbarrow were developed on silver/lead lodes, among them Wheal Brothers where a public footpath gives access to the surface remains. |
| The demand for tungsten prior to and during both World Wars led to both mining and reworking of dumps. Dumps were reworked at Hingston Down Consols and at Gunnislake Clitters, where a large mill for treating both tin and wolfram was opened in 1900 and closed in the late 1920s, substantial remains of which may still be seen. |