Belowda
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  Belowda Location within Cornwall | |
| OS grid reference | SW9661 |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Cornwall |
| Ambulance | South Western |
Belowda (Cornish : Boslowsa) [1] is a village in Cornwall, England, UK. The village is just north of the A30 trunk road, about seven miles west-southwest of Bodmin. [2] The village also gives its name to the nearby Belowda Beacon. It is in the civil parish of Roche.
There are two mineral lodes on Belowda beacon, Wheal Dora Lode, and Webbs Lode. Both lodes converge to meet at the summit of the hill (744 ft) where they were worked open cast. A shaft 500yds NE of Belowda village, on Wheal Dora is near the southern margin of the granite outcrop; and another, 140 yds SSW of the former, is in killas. The main shaft on Webb's Lode is on the granite margin, 550 yds N by W of Lane End farm and there are two others at 80yds SSE, respectively of the main shaft. Though the mine was active until 1902. There are no plans of the underground workings. [3]
Belowda Beacon was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1996. The description and reasons given by English Nature are as follows: This site shows superb development of minerals formed by late granitic fractionation and boron-fluorine metasomatism in a differentiate of the Belowda coarse megacrystic biotite granite boss. A short shallow adit driven westward as part of a larger stockwork tin mine exposes in its walls a topaz-tourmaline-quartz rock. The level is now collapsed, but exposes are still visible. Small overgrown dumps at the mouth of the adit also contains large pieces of the topaz and quartz with nests of finely developed tourmaline crystals. Topaz may form up to 80% of the rock. Rarely, small yellowish euhedral topaz crystals are present in cavities, the maximum size being 1 cm (the largest recorded in England) The occurrence is very unusual and considerable mineralogical interest. [4]
The downs around the beacon, as well as the downs around Tregonetha form the Tregonetha & Belowda Downs SSSI, noted for its biological interest and biodiversity. [5]
The River Fowey is a river in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.
Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem. Cassiterite was the chief tin ore throughout ancient history and remains the most important source of tin today.
Geevor Tin Mine, formerly North Levant Mine is a tin mine in the far west of Cornwall, England, between the villages of Pendeen and Trewellard. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history of a working tin mine. The museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. Since 2006, the mine has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
St Mewan is a civil parish and village in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) west of St Austell. It is a small settlement, comprising the parish church, rectory, a school and nearby farms.
Treverbyn is a civil parish and village in mid-Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, lying north of St Austell.
Roche is a civil parish and village in mid-Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village gets its name from the 20-metre (66-foot) high Roche Rock, a quartz-schorl outcrop east of the village. Roche is the Norman-French word for Rock. The parish population at the 2011 census including Belowda, Bilberry, Carbis, Coldvreath and Criggan is 3,381, and the ward population at the same census was 3,867.
Gwennap is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about five miles (8 km) southeast of Redruth. Hamlets of Burncoose, Comford, Coombe, Crofthandy, Cusgarne, Fernsplatt, Frogpool, Hick's Mill, Tresamble and United Downs lie in the parish, as does Little Beside country house.
Towan is found in many placenames in Cornwall. However, The Towans usually refers to the three-mile (5 km) stretch of coastal dunes which extends north-east from the estuary of the River Hayle to Gwithian beach with a midpoint near Upton. The South West Coast Path crosses the towans.
Caradon Hill is on Bodmin Moor in the former Caradon district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The summit is 371 metres (1,217 ft) above mean sea level. Caradon Hill is on the southeastern edge of the moor; it is between the villages of Minions (northwest), Upton Cross (northeast), Pensilva (southeast) and Darite (southwest).
Wheal Peevor was a metalliferous mine located on North Downs about 1.5 miles north-east of Redruth, Cornwall, England. The first mining sett was granted here in around 1701 on land owned by the St Aubyn family. It was originally mined at shallow depths for copper, but when the price for that metal slumped after 1788, the mine was able to change to mining tin ore, which was found deeper down. In the late 18th century Wheal Peevor had the advantage of being drained by the Great County Adit which was around 100 metres deep here. The mine covered only 12 acres but had rich tin lodes. In addition to tin and copper, pyrite was also mined here between 1872 and 1887.
Wheal Gorland was a metalliferous mine located just to the north-east of the village of St Day, Cornwall, in England, United Kingdom. It was one of the most important Cornish mines of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, both for the quantity of ore it produced and for the wide variety of uncommon secondary copper minerals found there as a result of supergene enrichment. It is the type locality for the minerals chenevixite, clinoclase, cornwallite, kernowite and liroconite.
Consolidated Mines, also known as Great Consolidated mine, but most commonly called Consols or Great Consols was a metalliferous mine about a mile ESE of the village of St Day, Cornwall, England. Mainly active during the first half of the 19th century, its mining sett was about 600 yards north–south; and 2,700 yards east–west, to the east of Carharrack. Although always much troubled by underground water, the mine was at times highly profitable, and it was the largest single producer of copper ore in Cornwall. Today the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.
The Cornubian batholith is a large mass of granite rock, formed about 280 million years ago, which lies beneath much of Cornwall and Devon in the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. The main exposed masses of granite are seen at Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor, St Austell, Carnmenellis, Land's End and the Isles of Scilly. The intrusion is associated with significant quantities of minerals particularly cassiterite, an ore of tin which has been mined since about 2000 BC. Other minerals include china clay and ores of copper, lead, zinc and tungsten.
Rinsey is a hamlet in the civil parish of Breage, in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is located off the main A394 road between Helston and Penzance. The nearby hamlet of Rinsey Croft is located 1 km to the north-east. The nearby cliffs and beach are owned and managed by the National Trust and part of Rinsey East Cliff is designated as the Porthcew Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its geological interest. The South West Coast Path passes through the property. Rinsey lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Tregonetha is a village in Cornwall, England, UK. It is located in the civil parish of St Wenn, 7 miles (11 km) west of the town of Bodmin.
Wheal Fortune or Great Wheal Fortune is the site of a mine in the civil parishes of Breage and Sithney in west Cornwall. Part of the disused mine was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its geological interest in 1991 and is also a Geological Conservation Review site of national importance for the minerals on the site.
Phoenix United Mine is a disused 19th century copper and tin mine in Cornwall, England, UK. Heavy metals left over in the soil from the mining operations have allowed mosses and lichens to flourish, and today the site is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), noted for its biological characteristics.
Wheal Metal is a tin-mining sett in west Cornwall, England, UK. Whilst not as famous as neighbouring Wheal Vor, it was thus described by the Mining Journal in July 1885: " Truly this is a wonderful mine—probably the richest tin mine in the world." It also hosts a very remarkable engine house of the mid-19th century that once stood over Trelawney's shaft on Wheal Vor, and since the Wheal Vor area itself has no visible remains, this is the only large surviving engine house of this group of mines which accounted for over a quarter of Cornish tin production in the mid-19th century.
Great Wheal Charlotte, also known as Wheal Charlotte, is an abandoned copper and tin mine lying between St Agnes and Porthtowan in Cornwall, England. All that is left of the mine now is the wall and door arch of an engine house and an adjacent fenced-off mine shaft. The surviving wall is surrounded by rock debris and the extensive remains of spoil tips, mostly of bare rock fragments crisscrossed by paths that link the South West Coast Path with surrounding land owned by the National Trust. Predominantly a copper producer, in its heyday, in the 1830s, the mine extracted ore containing 7.25% copper. It may have partially closed around 1840. However, ore production was high in this year, and records of output extend at least to 1856, and possibly to 1863.
Media related to Belowda at Wikimedia Commons
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