Morwellham Quay is an historic river port in Devon, England that developed to support the local mines. The port had its peak in the Victorian era and is now run as a tourist attraction and museum. It is the terminus of the Tavistock Canal, and has its own copper mine.
The open-air museum includes the restored 19th-century village, the docks and quays, a restored ship, the George and Charlotte copper mine which is toured by a small train, a Victorian farm and a nature reserve with trails.
In July 2006, UNESCO (the cultural arm of the United Nations) awarded World Heritage Site status to the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape area. Morwellham is strategically sited at the centre of the Tamar Valley Mining District which, together with nearby Tavistock, forms the easternmost gateway area to the rest of the World Heritage Site.
The industrial Heritage museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage.
Morwellham Quay was originally set up by the Benedictine monks of Tavistock Abbey, which was founded in 961, to carry goods to and from Plymouth on the River Tamar, since the River Tavy was unnavigable. By the 12th century, tin ore was being transported through the quay, followed by lead and silver ores in the 13th century. [1] Later, copper deposits were also discovered at the Quay itself and the George and Charlotte Mine opened in the 18th century. In addition, by 1800, manganese deposits were being extracted from the northern and western edges of Dartmoor and being brought to Morwellham.
By the end of the 18th century, the trail of pack horses across the rugged terrain was too much, and in 1817 the 4.5-mile-long Tavistock Canal was opened. The canal included a 1.5-mile tunnel which ended 237 feet above the quay at Morwellham. From here an inclined plane was constructed to bring the iron barges down to the quay, powered by a water wheel.
Morwellham Quay was at its peak during the time Devon Great Consols was in production. The mine was only four miles north of the port and shipped copper and later arsenic via the quay for a period of almost 60 years beginning in 1844. [2] [3] Morwellham became known as the "richest Copper port in Queen Victoria's Empire", [4] and the queen herself visited in 1856. Another inclined plane was built to transport the ore down the hill and a new quay was added to handle the 30,000 tons of ore that were exported each year. Arsenic was also extracted and it became the world's largest supplier of the mineral in the latter part of the century. However, by 1903 the Consols' wealth was exhausted and the mines closed.
By this stage, the railways had taken over and Morwellham's usefulness was also ended. The canal tunnel was used as a water supply for a hydroelectric plant and the inclined planes were abandoned.
In 2009 Devon County Council withdrew funding for the mining museum, which as a direct result was placed into administration. [5] In April 2010 the site was purchased by the owners of Bicton Park, and it reopened to the public later in the year. [6]
The site has been imaginatively preserved to give an impression of Victorian industrial and rural life. The assayers' offices have been carefully preserved and Victorian cottages, farm and schoolrooms presented. The ore-crushing plants driven by a 32-foot overhead waterwheel can be seen. A battery electric-powered tramway, constructed as part of the tourist attraction in the 1970s, takes visitors for tours on a single level of the copper mine. There is also an extensive ecological programme of visits to explore the valley by water and land. Old lime kilns can also be seen.
The three areas by the tunnel are listed as the bulk of sources of copper in the county in Lysons' guide to each county of Britain in the 1820s and the county's derived wealth from this metal alone were as follows:
Year | Tons of copper ore | Tons of fine copper smelted | £ |
---|---|---|---|
1801 | 1078 | 136 | 12,878 (equivalent to £1,040,000in 2021) |
1811 | 3540 | 323 | 31,517 (equivalent to £2,430,000in 2021) |
1812 | 5321 | 506 | 40,340 |
1813 | 5020 | 475 | 39,079 |
1814 | 5743 | 473 | 45,772 |
1815 | 4691 | 371 | 30,581 |
1816 | 3650 | 319 | 21,270 |
1817 | 3390 | 287 | 21,093 |
1818 | 4053 | 407 | 40,498 |
1819 | 3776 | 374 | 36,418 |
1820 | 4037 | 463 | 39,593 (equivalent to £3,370,000in 2021) [7] |
The BBC television series Edwardian Farm was filmed at Morwellham Quay during 2009/2010.
The Tamar is a river in south west England that forms most of the border between Devon and Cornwall. A part of the Tamar Valley is a World Heritage Site due to its historic mining activities.
Tavistock is an ancient stannary and market town within West Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy from which its name derives. At the 2011 census the three electoral wards had a population of 13,028. It traces its recorded history back to at least 961 when Tavistock Abbey, whose ruins lie in the centre of the town, was founded. Its most famous son is Sir Francis Drake.
The Tavy is a river on Dartmoor, Devon, England. The name derives from the Brythonic root "Tam", once thought to mean 'dark' but now generally understood to mean 'to flow'. It has given its name to the town of Tavistock and the villages of Mary Tavy and Peter Tavy. It is a tributary of the River Tamar and has as its own tributaries:
Kit Hill, at 334 metres high, dominates the area between Callington and the River Tamar in southeast Cornwall, England, UK. The word 'Kit' comes from Old English for kite, a reference to birds of prey. Buzzards and sparrowhawks can still be seen on the hill. It is one of five Marilyn hills in Cornwall, the four others are Watch Croft, Brown Willy, Carnmenellis and Hensbarrow Beacon.
Calstock is a civil parish and a large village in south east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, on the border with Devon. The village is situated on the River Tamar 6 miles (9.7 km) south west of Tavistock and 10 miles (16 km) north of Plymouth.
Mining in Cornwall and Devon, in the southwest of Britain, began in the early Bronze Age, around 2150 BC. Tin, and later copper, were the most commonly extracted metals. Some tin mining continued long after the mining of other metals had become unprofitable, but ended in the late 20th century. In 2021, it was announced that a new mine was extracting battery-grade lithium carbonate, more than 20 years after the closure of the last South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall in 1998.
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes in Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of England. The site was added to the World Heritage List during the 30th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Vilnius, July 2006. Following plans in 2011 to restart mining at South Crofty, and to build a supermarket at Hayle Harbour, the World Heritage Committee drafted a decision in 2014 to put the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger, but this was rejected at the 38th Committee Session at Doha, Qatar, in favour of a follow-up Reactive Monitoring Mission.
Gunnislake is a large village in east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the Tamar Valley approximately ten miles (16 km) north of Plymouth
Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or Tamar Valley AONB is a legally designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Devon and Cornwall in England.
The Luxulyan Valley is the steep sided and thickly wooded valley of the River Par, situated in mid Cornwall, England, UK. It contains a major concentration of early 19th century industrial remains, and was designated as part of a World Heritage Site in 2006.
The Tavistock Canal is a canal in the county of Devon in England. It was constructed early in the 19th century to link the town of Tavistock to Morwellham Quay on the River Tamar, where cargo could be loaded into ships. The canal is still in use to supply water to a hydro-electric power plant at Morwellham Quay, and forms part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. It is unusual for a canal, as it has a gentle slope over its length, resulting in a considerable flow of water.
Joseph Austen Treffry was an engineer, mining adventurer, and industrialist who became a significant landowner in Cornwall, England.
John Taylor was a British mining engineer.
New Quay is a small once industrial abandoned hamlet and intensive mining port on the steep, winding banks of the River Tamar in Devon. New Quay village is immediately east of and downstream of the similar port of Morwellham Quay. New Quay was an important copper, tin and later arsenic port serving the local mines including the George and Charlotte Mine, Bedford Consolidated Mine and Gawton Arsenic Mine. Since July 2006 New Quay is within the World Heritage Site that is the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
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.
Norris Green is a village in Cornwall, England, UK. It was enlarged from a farming hamlet so that it now adjoins the neighbouring village of Higher Metherell. Both settlements are within the civil parish of Calstock which borders the River Tamar, the county boundary with Devon in south-east Cornwall.
Devon Great Consols was a copper mine near Tavistock in Devon. The lease on the site was taken from the Duke of Bedford in 1844 by a group of investors. The 1,024 shares, sold at one pound each, were divided among the six men. Earlier attempts to mine this property had all ended in failure.