The Poldark legacy: How tin mining could return to Cornwall
Jon Yeomans
Updated
South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall could reopen after nearly 20 years - COPYRIGHT JAY WILLIAMS
In Redruth, Cornwall, reminders of the golden age of mining are everywhere. The giant obelisk of the Basset memorial glowers over the town, erected on a hill by miners in honour of Francis Basset, the local magnate, in the early 19th century. Chimneys pepper the landscape, rising up out of Morrisons car parks and housing estates. The derelict mining exchange, once the local bourse for stock trading, sits forlornly in the centre of town.
On the road to Camborne, which still lends its name to the nearby School of Mines, stands a newer, freshly painted metal pithead, marking the entrance to the South Crofty tin mine.
Strongbow Exploration, a Canadian listed company, has ambitious plans to reopen the mine and dig up the high-grade tin at its deeper levels.
Though its history dates back four centuries, with evidence of Elizabethan mine workings, South Crofty has been shut for nearly 20 years, taking with it the last of Cornwall’s long mining history.
World Tin Consumption from 1900
But now that the BBC TV series Poldark has romanticised Cornish tin mining on the small screen, can Strongbow succeed in resurrecting the real thing?
“South Crofty didn’t shut because it was all mined out, it shut because of the collapse in tin prices,” says Owen Mihalop, the chief operating officer of Strongbow.
The industry’s fall can be traced back to 1985 and the bankruptcy of the international cartel that had controlled the market for decades. A sudden surfeit of supply led to a plunge in prices, pushing tin mines to the wall. South Crofty held on longer than most because its grade, or quality, was so high, but it bowed to the inevitable in 1998.
At one time the Camborne region was home to 26 mines. When the industry sprang up in the 16th and 17th centuries, prospectors dug for copper, close to the surface. In the late 18th century, tin mining became dominant. The people have never forgotten their mines. Indeed various companies have tried to reopen South Crofty over the years, but could never get it across the finishing line.
The mine is flooded below 60m
“We’ve been waiting 10 years for something to happen to it; it’s changed hands so much I don’t know who owns it now,” says one local.
That may be about to change. Strongbow is ramping up its presence ahead of a possible return to production by 2020. It bought South Crofty out of administration in 2016, spurred by a long-awaited recovery in tin prices.
The metal is now mostly used as lead-free solder in electronics, as well as in chemical production. Strongbow is confident the price will not sink below its current level of $20,000 (£15,200) a ton, as no new mines are being opened anywhere in the world, and the US has been selling off its stockpiles, leaving little new supply in the West.
South Crofty’s official mine life is eight years, if it were mined at a rate of 1,000 tons a day, but Strongbow believes a far greater resource lies beneath – and has a permit to mine until 2071.
The mine is vast, with a warren of tunnels stretching from the edge of Redruth almost to Camborne, some 2.5 miles (4km) long. It sinks to 3,280ft (1,000m) at its deepest point.
Poldark has raised the profile of Cornish tin mining
Inside the company’s offices, which used to be the miners’ changing hut, there is a giant model made of string and plastic that attempts to detail the sprawling mine workings. “It took three years to make,” says Alan Reynolds, a surveyor who built the model with his brother, Phil.
His colleagues are busy digitising the ledgers in the archive and feeding the data into 3D modelling programmes to get a better estimate of the resource. South Crofty already has the third highest grade of any tin mine in the world, behind only deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Peru.
The true scale can only be confirmed once the mine is “dewatered”; the mine is flooded below a depth of 60m (197ft), and the company is hoping to receive permission in September to begin pumping water out. This will be cleaned at a brand new processing plant to be built on site and then sent back into the Red River.
It’s going to be a modern mine in the location of an old mine
Richard Williams
“It’s going to be a modern mine in the location of an old mine,” says Richard Williams, the firm’s chief executive, explaining that Strongbow will widen the tunnels to allow “trackless machinery” and up-to-date ventilation.
Williams senses a “change in mindset in the UK towards mines going into production”, citing the warm investor response to Sirius Minerals, which wants to build a fertiliser mine in Yorkshire. Strongbow is quietly canvassing investors ahead of a possible listing on London’s junior Aim market later this year. It will seek to raise $5m-15m initially; the total cost of getting the mine back into production will be around $118m.
Williams says the company has worked hard to win local support, holding community meetings when it hits certain milestones. As South Crofty sits under the urban conurbation of Redruth-Pool-Camborne, “it was important to demonstrate the impact on the surface would be minimal”, he says.
World Tin Stocks
The mine could employ up to 300 people, not counting suppliers, once it is up and running. “Camborne was traditionally a working man’s town – its guts have been ripped out [since mining ended],” Mihalop says.
South Crofty will provide “well-paid, high-quality jobs with a spectrum of skills”, he adds, in an area where the biggest employers are often the supermarkets.
Though it is closest to having a spade in the ground, Strongbow is not the only firm building on Cornwall’s mining history. Strategic Minerals has begun drilling for samples near Callington, where it hopes to revive the Redmoor tin and tungsten mine.
“We know there’s a resource there, we can identify it with new technology and make the project economic,” says Peter Wale, its director.
Poldark’s adventures have certainly “helped people understand the basics of what mining is about”, he adds, while insisting that the outlook for tin is strong.
“There’s no new production out there and tin stocks are very low.”
South Crofty
Meanwhile, a start-up called Cornish Lithium is hoping to extract lithium from the water that has welled up in hot springs around the county. Jeremy Wrathall, managing director, has bought the rights to the water in Strongbow’s mine and hopes to build a processing plant to extract it. The mineral is a key ingredient in batteries and could be in high demand as electric vehicles hit the roads. Cornish Lithium is fundraising privately but could eventually list in London.
The lithium venture “represents an opportunity for a new mineral extraction industry in Britain”, according to George Eustice, MP for Camborne and Redruth. Likewise, the reopening of South Crofty would be a “huge boost”, Eustice says, adding: “There have been a number of false starts, but I am optimistic about the work being done by Strongbow to ensure the mine is returned to its former glory.”
Tin price from 1990 and weeks supply
The area still holds “a great sentimental attachment to mining”, according Bob Egerton, a councillor, who admits there has been “some scepticism” about whether South Crofty will ever see the light of day again. The project has “broad support” from the council, he adds, pointing out it sits bang in the middle of the “biggest urban area in Cornwall”.
A revival in Cornwall’s mining heritage is “long overdue”, agrees John Meyer, an analyst at SP Angel, who studied there in 1986. “Cornish tin miners are a tight bunch and went on to restart mines in eastern Europe and Africa, taking their skills but often retaining their base back home,” he says.
He points out Strongbow has a highly-regarded backer in the form of Gren Thomas, its chairman, a Welshman who found fame in the industry by discovering the Diavik diamond field in Canada.
Old engine houses near South Crofty
At South Crofty there is still plenty of work to be done, though most of its permits are already in place. Strongbow needs to repair the lifts to the surface and replace the wooden struts in the main shaft, which date back to 1910.
When it reopens, it will be one of the few working mines in the UK, joining a list that includes Wolf Minerals across the border in Devon, and ICL in Yorkshire, which is mining the potash deposit that could one day feed Sirius' mine.
Strongbow also wants to give the next generation of students a leg up: it plans to strike a partnership with the Camborne School of Mines to use one of its shafts as a training facility. Though he is wary of raising local people’s hopes, Mihalop is confident South Crofty will rise again. “Timing is everything,” he says. “And the timing seems right this time.”
