Mining in a Medieval Landscape: The Royal Silver Mines of the Tamar Valley

Very interesting read.

This is a very thoroughly researched and referenced scholarly publication, written in a lively and accessible style. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the landscape history of the Bere Peninsula, and/or in wider mining history.

According to the authors - an economic historian and two landscape archaeologists - this book is the result of a two-year research project which, incidentally, also resulted in the discovery of a previously-unknown Roman fort above Calstock, thus solving the clue of smelting at the `vetus castrum de Calistok'. As its subtitle indicates, it focuses on the royal silver mines in the Bere peninsula.There are seven chapters. The first acts as an introduction to both the "rich documentary sources" and the "physical evidence on the ground". Maps and surveys of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries contain names related to references found in medieval documents, allowing the medieval landscape to be rediscovered. The documentary sources provide future potential for locating the smelting sites through magnetometry.The evidence on the ground includes the surface remains of the workings, the subterranean evidence being unfortunately inaccessible. There is also the sixteen-kilometre Lumburn Leat, constructed in the late-fifteenth century, "one of the most impressive yet previously unrecognised feats of medieval engineering in Devon ... the scale of which appears to be unique in medieval England." (And yet, there is nothing in the narrative that provides cast-iron evidence for a medieval date: indeed, an argument could be made that the leat was constructed for the mine at Buttspill.) In addition, we have mine workings, farmsteads, roads, and field systems: "Taken altogether, this makes for a remarkably well-preserved medieval landscape."The long chapter two - `Earth's Riches' - has very little to do directly with the main subject of the book, but chapter three is more pertinent, not only because it focuses on silver production but also because it places local production within a wider European context. It is bizarre that the earliest documented silver mine in England (1130) should be centred on a place called Alston, but this village is in Cumberland, not the Bere peninsula. Meanwhile the medieval Bere mines developed into quite a cosmopolitan business, being leased by the crown to Venetians, Genoese, Dutchmen and Germans. "It was the commitment to such capital intensive methods on a large scale at Bere Ferrers which is a unique feature of mining in England at that period."Chapter four looks at the extraction and processing of the silver-bearing ores. The authors write that, "One of the achievements of this project has been to add a spatial - landscape - dimension to the rich historical sources that survive." But the landscape impact of the mines, the dressing of the ore, its smelting and refining was "surprisingly limited, considering the scale of the mining activity. There were, however, other aspects of the industry - notably the large requirements for timber and fuel, and the creation of a town at Bere Alston." The requirements for fuel and power and labour resources have resulted in different landscapes in the Tamar Valley in the pre-modern and post-modern mining periods.And these features are explored in the remaining chapters; the fifth deals with the management of water and woodland, the sixth with the mining community and its needs. The landscape character analysis provided for Bere Ferrers and the surrounding area is most useful, although marred by silly spelling errors. The authors claim that Bere Alston is "probably ... the first specialist mining town in Britain." But the proof is tenuous. Indeed, the book's final sentence reduces the level down to a mere `perhaps'.The book's final chapter is a summing up, like an extended abstract: "Today, the Bere Ferrers peninsula is a peaceful, rural location ... it is hard to imagine that the area was also once the focus of a thriving mining industry." This book is an excellent way to enter into that almost-lost world, by showing how so much remains hidden just below the surface.There are a few niggles. The name `Peaks Meadow' does not necessarily imply a reference to miners from the Peak District: it is a common name in south Devon. Then there's the problem of the supposed silting up of harbours caused by the processes of surface and underground mining operations, a phenomenon that deserves a more critical assessment as this silting seems to have occurred in other parts of England that did not experience these processes upstream and in other parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. (Perhaps a closer look at climate issues would be more productive here.) I would also have liked some exploration of the relationship of the mines and their products with the port at Morwellham, for I was surprised to learn that the end-product was transported overland to the Tower of London. And what of the Ferrers family? What was their direct involvement, if any?The book comes with plenty of illustrations, figures, maps and plans, but all alas in black and white. I found the flowchart diagrams explaining the stages in the processing operations especially useful. But many of the photographs of the local landscape are - to coin a phrase - not fit for purpose, being far too dark. It is a shame they are not in colour. There is a fine set of interpretative maps based on eighteenth and nineteenth century sources. The book also comes with a glossary describing adits to turnboles. There are a few niggling little typos and punctuation errors here and there. The book ends with notes, sources, bibliography, and index.Living, as I do, half the week in Bere Alston, I have no hesitation in recommending this book as a fascinating insight into a world that the superficial eye would never think was there.

I was given this book as a present by people who live in the area but as I live in Lancashire I was rather doubtful that it would have much interest for me. In fact it proved to be extremely useful because due to the scarcity of information of mining in the local area, the book details some useful facts gleaned from more widely spread research! An interesting read.