Ding Dong Mines

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Greenburrow pumping engine house

The Ding Dong Mines lie in an old and extensive mining area situated in the parish of Madron, in the far west of Cornwall, in the granite lands of Penwith near Land's End. The mines are about two miles south of the St Just to Penzance road, looking out over Mount's Bay and St Michael's Mount to the south-west.

Name

How the mines got their name is not known It has been suggested that the name refers to the 'head of the lode' or the outcrop of tin on the hill. Another suggestion has it that it is from the bell in Madron parish church that was rung to mark the end of the last shift of the miners.[1]

History

Near the mine ruins can be found the Bronze Age Nine Maidens Stone Circle, the Mên-an-Tol and Lanyon Quoit and the Ding Dong mines themselves.[2][3] These mines are reported to be the oldest in the western shires, dating back to prehistoric times.[4]

Ding Dong Mine is likely one of the oldest mines in the United Kingdom.[5] In its day, it was described as having 22 tin lodes connected with it and as extending over 500 acres.[6][7] It is not known when the mine actually began to be worked.[8] The earliest record of Ding Dong is given by John Norden at the beginning of the 17th century.[9]

In 1714 three separate mines were operating: Good Fortune, Wheal Malkin and Hard Shafts Bounds. A single mine operation was created in 1813 by combining 16 smaller mines in the area.[9] By the middle of the 18th century at least seven small concerns had sprung up although the name Ding Dong did not become the usual name until after the turn of the 19th century.[9] By 1782 sixteen working mines were to be found in the area.[9] and the present sett include Ding Dong in the middle, Providence, Tredinneck and Ishmael’s to the east and Wheal Malkin and Wheal Boys to the West. The eastern veins of ore were exhausted by 1850, so the western veins became the area of primary production.[10] Because of the shift in production from east to west, a pumping house was built at the Greenburrow shaft in 1865 and an engine was transferred there to pump water from it.[10] By 1870, pruduction had increased enough for the mine to have 200 men working there.[10]

A shaft at the Ding Dong mine

The mine was said to be mining tin in granite in 1823.It was described as being 400 feet above sea level and 600 feet below the earth's surface. There were 120 men working underground at the time and they used 900lbs of candles each month to light their way in the mine. Every day, the mine's pumps removed 50,000 gallons of water from the mine; and 300 lbs of gunpowder were used each month in the mine.

The 1823 report said that the mine had been working for eight years.[11] In 1839, the mine was described as employing 200-300 miners.[12]

During the 18th century the mine was the centre of a patent infringement claim brought against the mine owners by James Watt. A 28 inch cylinder inverted engine was put into Ding Dong in 1796: it had been designed by Edward Bull, who had been chief designer for Boulton and Watt; James Watt saw this as an infringement of his 'condenser patent'.[13][9] One of these engines was erected at Ding Dong in 1797,[13] when a conventional Boulton and Watt engine was inverted by Richard Trevithick and William West. Trevithick worked with his father at Wheal Treasury mine and, after making improvements which increased the operating pressure of the Bull Steam Engine, Trevithick was promoted to engineer of the Ding Dong mine in 1796.[13] Today the ruined Count (Account) House is the only remaining structure from Richard Trevithick's time at Ding Dong.[14]

The mine 1814 it was reopened and worked until 1878.[7] In the period from 1855 until its closure in 1878, the mine yielded some 2,905 tons of black tin.[7] Not long before its closure, a new lode of tin had been discovered.[8] But during the 1870s the price of tin dropped due to the opening of tin deposits in Queensland and other parts of the British Empire. Due to this, and exhaustion of the local deposits, Ding Dong finally ceased production in 1879. Attempts were made in 1912 and 1928 to reopen it but these failed.[15]

There were two recorded instances of explosions at the mine which took place in the 1860s. Three slight explosions occurred at the mine circa 1860 when a previously underwater level of the mine was being re-opened.[16] Another happened in 1868, with two miners being scalded followed by a second explosion two days later.[17]

The Ding Dong Mine is now part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage site. The mine's engine house has been designated a Grade II Building.[18]

Legends

The ancientness of the mine is the stuff of local legend. An old miner told A. K. Hamilton Jenkin "Why, they do say there's only one mine in Cornwall older than Dolcoath, and that's Ding Dong, which was worked before the time of Jesus Christ."[19][20] This idea might be influenced by the impious legend that Joseph of Arimathea came here in the first century and that he brought the young Jesus to address the miners.

A folk song called "Ding Dong Mine" was written in 1986 by West-country singer Jerry Johnson. One verse tells of a disaster at the mine, though this is mere poetic licence: there is no record of such a disaster here, though in other Cornish mines there certainly were.

Outside links

References

  1. ↑ Jennings 1936.
  2. ↑ Chapman 2011, pp. 64-65.
  3. ↑ Pope 2006, pp. 128-129.
  4. ↑ Brown & Acton 2001.
  5. ↑ Hunt 1887, p. 192.
  6. ↑ Collins 1912, p. 64.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Collins 1912, pp. 469-470.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Handbook for England and Wales 1878, p. 339.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Gamble 2011, p. 34.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "Ding Dong Mine". Northern Mines Research Society UK. http://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/metal/cornwall-devon-mines/st-just-area/dingdong/. Retrieved 8 August 2016. 
  11. ↑ The Annals of Philosophy, Volumes 21-22 1823, p. 447.
  12. ↑ Statistical Society of Great Britain 1839, p. 206.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Trevithick 1872, p. 60.
  14. ↑ "The Count House, Ding Dong Mine". Ding Dong Count House.org. http://dingdongcounthouse.org.uk/. Retrieved 8 August 2016. 
  15. ↑ Barton 1963, pp. 9-10.
  16. ↑ Foster 1905, p. 511.
  17. ↑ Mills 2010, p. 33.
  18. ↑ National Heritage List 1136718: Engine House at Ding Dong Mine
  19. ↑ Hamilton Jenkin, A. K. (1945) Cornwall and its People. London: J. M. Dent; p. 347
  20. ↑ Hunt 1887, p. 351.
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