Lanterdan Quarry is a disused

open cast Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

slate quarry between Tintagel and Trebarwith on the north coast of Cornwall, South West England. The quarry is the oldest, largest and most spectacular of Tintagel’s coastal quarries and was worked from the fifteenth until the early twentieth century. A distinguishing feature of the quarry is a 25m high pinnacle of inferior slate.

Location

The quarry lies south of Caroline Quarry immediately west of the village of

Treknow Treknow () is a small village in Tintagel civil parish, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom: it is the second largest settlement, and is located between Trevena and Trebarwith. It is situated north of Bodmin, north-west of Camelford, and west ...

. As the quarry is adjacent to Caroline and West quarries, it can be difficult to discern its exact boundaries. The quarry covers a 200m stretch of coastline but doesn’t reach as far as the water’s edge, making it more similar to the nearby inland workings at Prince of Wales and

Bowithick Bowithick is a hamlet on the northern edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 201 ''Plymouth & Launceston'' Bowithick is situated near the disused Davidstow Moor airfield. The nearest vil ...

quarries. The workings extend up to 80m inland and reach a height of around 30m. The quarry is clearly visible from the

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises a ...

and can also be reached by clambering over rocks from

Trebarwith Strand Trebarwith Strand ( kw, Trebervedh Sian; locally sometimes shortened to ''The Strand'') is a section of coastline located near the coastal settlement of Trebarwith on the north coast of Cornwall, England, UK, south of Tintagel. It has 800m of san ...

and Hole beaches.

The Stone

The quarry provided a source of Upper Devonian slate and Lower Carboniferous slates of an olive green or blue-black colour used predominantly for roofing. The rubble was used as building material.

History

Lanterdan is the oldest of Tintagel’s slate quarries having been worked from the end of the fifteenth century.Canner, A. C., 1982, ''The Parish of Tintagel, Some Historical Notes'', Camelford. At least seven different quarries were cut into the cliffs here. In 1883, the quarry employed a solitary worker, Thomas Sweet and according to the 1907 OS map, Lanterdan was still in use at that date.«Coastal Slate Quarries – Tintagel to Trebarwith” (1990) Adam Sharpe, CAU archaeological survey for the National Trust. ISBN 1 871162 95 5

Waste Disposal

Initially the unusable stone will have been deposited into the sea. As the quarry moved further inland, tramways will have taken to the stone to the cliff edge where it will have been tipped into the water. Latterly, earlier worked parts of the quarry will have been backfilled.

Industrial Remains

Lanterdan has by far the most ruined buildings of all Tintagel’s coastal quarries. The majority of these were temporary shelters or tool sheds and many of them are easily visible from the coastal path. Some might have been shelters for the horses and ponies used to power the

whim Whim may refer to: * Whim, U.S. Virgin Islands, a settlement * Whim (mining), a capstan or drum with a vertical axle used in mining * Whim (carriage), a type of carriage * ''Whim'', a reissue of ''Adventures of Wim'', a book by George Cockroft as ...

pulleys used to lift the slate up and down the quarry walls. The buildings have been repurposed over the years by children, anglers and campers, making it hard for archaeologists to determine their original function. As the quarry workings moved inland, previously worked areas were backfilled, obliterating some of the older buildings. Four of these part-buried buildings will have been small splitting cabins - each measures around 2.5m by 1.3m. There are also remains of tramways that will have been used to take waste slate to the cliff edge.

References

{{reflist Quarries in Cornwall Quarries in England Industrial archaeological sites in England