bunn

Today, (and I know that this is shocking) I did not visit a mine. We walked along an ex-copper-ore-transportation canal, but I feel somehow that doesn't quite count.

So here is a mine I prepared earlier: a chimney dating from ?1850 belonging to Deer Park Mine, an old tin mine lurking befoliaged on the North side of a wood along the river Tamar.

There's a shaft and an engine house next to this, but I am not sure you would recognise the engine house due to the prodigious amount of ivy afflicting it, and I've only just realised by looking at the records that the shaft is actually a shaft and not an a great big fox den, for it smells most ripely of foxes.

Whereas the chimney is clearly a chimney, at least at the bottom, although if you look up at the top of it, it looks surprisingly like a tree.

According to the Heritage Gateway, it closed in 1875 "when the mine was abandoned, presumably in the tin depression. Machinery offered for sale included a 40'' pumping engine, a 56' diameter waterwheel that lifted 24 heads of stamps, buddles, a buring house and a horse whim".

"The place name 'Deer Park Farm' refers to the former 'Carrybullock Deer Park'. The park was mentioned as early as 1282 and is likely to be earlier. In 1357 the Black Prince ordered deer to be sent from it to restock his parks at Launceston and Trematon." There are still plenty of deer, although they are quite unregulated nowadays.