In King John's time the tin mines were farmed by the Jews. The right to it was claimed by the king as Earl of Cornwall.
Old smelting-houses in the peninsula are still called "Jews' houses," and, judging by certain noses and lips that one comes across occasionally in the Duchy, they left their half-breeds behind them.
During the time of Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, the produce of the tin mines was considerable, and it was in fact largely due to his reputed wealth from this source that he was elected (1257).
The tin workings went on with varying prosperity till the reign of Elizabeth, when she introduced German engineers and workmen, with improved appliances. In her time the tinners of Cornwall were divided into four portions, named from the principal works of that period. Each of these divisions had its steward under the Lord Warden, who kept his court once in every three weeks. The four stannary towns of Cornwall were Helston, Truro, Lostwithiel, and Liskeard; and at Lostwithiel may be seen the remains of the ducal palace; and at Luxulyan the church, in the tower of which the stannary records and charters were formerly preserved.
In Devon the stannary towns were Tavistock, Ashburton, and Chagford, to which Plympton was added in the reign of Edward III., and Lydford was appointed as the stannary prison.
Ordinary justices of the peace had no jurisdiction over the miners in their disputes.
Carew, who was about the court of Queen Elizabeth, has furnished us with a valuable record of the state of the mines before the introduction of new German machinery and methods.
He notices both the stream-works and the lodes, and his opinion was that the deposits in the former were the result of the Deluge.
He then describes the process of shoding, that is of tracing the direction of a vein by fragments found near the surface. The shode pits, which are also called costeening pits, were holes sunk into the ground to no great depth till indications of the lode were reached. The miners next sank pits seven or eight feet deep till they reached the lode itself.
"If they misse the load in one place, they sincke a like shaft" (pit) "in another beyond that, commonly further up the hill, and so a third and a fourth, until they light at last upon it."
Over Dartmoor and the Bodmin moors "the old men's workings" may be seen; hardly a gully has not been streamed, every river-bed has been turned over. The face of the moor is in places welted to such an extent that it alters the character of the scene. These workings are now grass-grown; they are very ancient, and clearly were conducted open to the sky. As the miners worked up a river-bed they built a colander behind them of rude blocks of granite, through which the stream might flow away, and many a rivulet now runs underground through these artificial passages.
In dressing the ore the miners broke it with hammers, and then "vanned" it on their broad oak shovels. The wind bore away the valueless dust, leaving the metal behind. By the side of the "goyles," or deep workings, may be found "vanning-steads" where this process was conducted. But with the introduction of machinery the crazing-mill was employed, worked by a waterwheel, in which the ore was passed between two grinding-stones. The washing of the dust which took the place of the dry process was this: -
"The streame, after it hath forsaken the mill, is made to fall by certayne degrees" (steps) "one somewhat distant from another, upon each of which at every descent lyeth a green turfe, three or four foote square and one foote thick. On this the tinner layeth a certayne portion of the sandie tinne, and with his shovell softly tosseth the same to and fro, that through this stirring the water, which runneth over it, may wash away the light earth from the tinne, which, of a heavier substance, lyeth fast to the turfe."
After the black tin, or ore, had been thus treated it was conveyed to the blowing-house. The usage on Dartmoor was, when a miner was far from one of these, to tie the ore in a bag marked with his name or sign, and hang it about a dog's neck; the beast then conveyed it to the mill.
Of the "blowing-houses" a great many remain on Dartmoor. There are two on the Yealm, one, very perfect, on the Erme, one very early, before the introduction of the waterwheel, at Deep Swincombe, several on the Dart.
The blowing-house was a small structure of one chamber and a cache, or storeplace, underground. The doorway was rarely high enough to admit a man without stooping double. The walls were of stone without mortar, and, as far as can be judged from their remains, had no window. The furnace was heated with charcoal, and the fire blown by means of a great pair of bellows worked by a tiny waterwheel. The process was so roughly conducted that "divers light sparkles" of tin are said to have lodged in the thatched roof in sufficient quantities to render the burning of the roof once in seven years worth the undertaking. The melted metal ran out into a spoon-shaped hollow in a block of granite, or elvan, and was run into moulds also cut in slabs, many of which remain near the old blowing-houses.
The white tin was then conveyed to a royal smelting-house, where it received a stamp; and no miner was suffered to dispose of his metal till it had thus been marked, and he had paid his due to the Crown for it.
Some of the terms used by tin miners may not prove uninteresting.
Stream-tin when found scattered beneath the surface on a small declivity is called shode, and runs to a depth that varies from one to ten feet. A right to work a certain portion is called a sett. The rubbish thrown out of a mine is called stent; sand or gravel, including tin, is termed gard; the walling on each side of a tye or adit is called stilling; the channels by which superfluous water is let run off are cundards, a corruption of "conduits." Oblong pits for a washing-floor are gounces; the frame of iron bars above is a ruddle.
Buckets are kibbals; breaking up ore is bucking.
A whim is said to have derived its name from this: A man named Coster, observing the labour that was expended on bringing up the refuse from the mines in buckets, fell a-thinking.
"Well, old man," said a mate, "what be up wi' you?"
"I have a whim in my head," he answered, "and I'm tryin' to reduce he to practice."
Coster's whim was much joked about, but when set up outside his head at the pit mouth, it proved to be no joke at all, but a real boon.
Superincumbent earth is burden.
A miner worked at Headland Warren mines, on the Webburn, and lived at Challacombe. Every day when leaving work he brought away with him a lump of ore in his pocket, and on reaching his lodging threw it away among the furze bushes. Years after the farmer at Challacombe removed three cartloads of these lumps; that was when tin was at £60 a ton.
From a speech of Sir Walter Raleigh in Parliament in 1601, when Lord Warden of the Stannaries, it would appear that the pay of a working tinner was then four shillings per week, finding himself. Of this he boasts as a great change for the better, inasmuch as previously the tinner had received but half that amount. By all accounts the tinners were in a worse condition than the agricultural labourers.
The Stannary Parliament for the tinners on Dartmoor sat on Crockern Tor till the court was removed to Truro.
The first Parliament held there of which records remain was on September 11th, 1494; the last I have heard of was held at the close of last century.