Rock pinnacles in West Quarry - geograph

Tintagel Slate Quarries fall into two categories: the series of quarries lying between Tintagel Castle and

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 ...

on the north coast of Cornwall, South West England and the

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 ...

quarries further inland. There are around eight cliff-edge quarries as well as two wharfs, all of which are now disused as well as four inland sites, two of which are still in operation. The first quarry to be worked appears to have been Lanterdan at some point in the fifteenth century, while the last of the coastal quarries, Long Grass ceased operations in 1937. The remains of the coastal quarries occupy coastal land owned by the National Trust and most are easily accessible 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 ...

The Prince of Wales Quarry The Prince of Wales Quarry is a disused open cast slate quarry in Trebarwith Valley on the outskirts of Tintagel in Cornwall, South West England. The quarry is known for its engine house, the only one of its kind in North Cornwall. History ...

has been turned into a country park by North Cornwall District Council.

Coastal quarries

The Pinnacle in Lanterdan Quarry - geograph

* Gillow * Long Grass * Lambshouse and Gull Point * Bagalow *Caroline * Lanterdan * West Quarry ;Dria Quarry Dria Quarry is a small, disused slate quarry between Tintagel and Trebarwith which was abandoned in the early twentieth century. It is one of several quarries whose activity has dramatically shaped this stretch of coastline but the quality of slate will have been of a lower grade than at nearby quarries such as Long Grass, Lambshouse and Gull Point Quarries.

Inland quarries

Bowithick Quarry Bowithick Quarry is a disused nineteenth century open cast slate quarry situated in Trebarwith Valley on the outskirts of Tintagel in Cornwall, South West England. The quarry ceased operations in 1913. Location The quarry site lies in Trebarw ...

*Trevillet Quarry *Trebarwith Road Rustic Quarry

Wharfs

*Port William *

Penhallick Wharf Penhallick Wharf is a disused coastal loading dock between Tintagel Castle and Trebarwith Strand on the north coast of Cornwall in South West England. The wharf served the Tintagel Slate Quarries, particularly those without easy access to the loa ...

Tintagel Haven Tintagel Haven also known as Castle Cove is a small beach on the north side of Tintagel Island on the north coast of Cornwall, South West England. Slate from Tintagel's coastal quarries was brought by donkey to the cliffs above Tintagel Haven. ...

The Slate

The working faces of the coastal quarries reach to the full height of the cliffs- in the north and in the south. The cliff top is relatively flat with no naturally occurring coves, bays or river valleys. The stone itself is Upper Devonian slate and Lower Carboniferous slate of a greyish green colour and was used predominantly for roofing while the rubble was useful for building. The slate closer to sea level is generally of better quality than that higher up.

Quarrying in Tintagel

Tintagel, Prince of Wales Quarry - geograph

The southernmost cliff quarries (the southern end of Caroline as well as Lanterdan and West quarries) as well as the inland sites used conventional open cast stone extraction methods. However, clifftop quarrying provided unique challenges. Gillow, Long Grass, Lambshouse, Gull Point, Dria, Bagalow and the northern part of Caroline are sea cliffs where the slate workfaces were already exposed and which have simply been cut into. The southern end of Caroline as well as Lanterdan and West quarries are more conventional where the slate has been dug out of the cliff rather than into it. Working the cliff face quarries will have involved clearing away any surface material such as soil, grass and loose stones and dumping them in the sea. A strong point will have been established on

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

a short way back from the cliff edge. On the rock immediately above the cliff edge, a

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 ...

is built. This is a wooden frame with a pulley that is anchored at the strong point and operated by a donkey or horse walking in circles, often while blindfolded to avoid distractions. Quarrying on the cliffs will have been a hazardous occupation with men suspended by ropes as they worked the vertical rock face. The whims were used to winch workers down and buckets of slate back up. The stone was extracted by hand using drills but also with explosives, and the value of the slate extracted clearly made this kind of hazardous and labour-intensive quarrying cost-effective. The slate from the coastal quarries was dressed or split into thin, usable tiles in sheds at the top of the cliff. The slate from the coastal quarries was dressed or split into thin, usable tiles in sheds at the top of the cliffs. A good workman could split 100 dozen roofing slates in a day. Splitters worked 7.30am to 5.30pm with a half hour break. Some rag slates measured 6 ft by 2 ft, some were 18 inches square and sold at 2s.6d a dozen in 1888. The slates were known by names relating to their size, which were (in inches): Queens 36x7, Duchess 24x14, Countesses 20x10, Ladies 16x9 and Doubles 12x7. Amall roofing slates known as scantles measuring 9x5, 8x6,7x7 and 6x3 were cut by boys. Slate from North Cornwall's quarries was used to make cisterns up to 2,000 gallons as well as corn chests, pig troughs, mangers, pump troughs, baths, salting troughs, milk coolers, larders, chimney tops, mantle pieces, window sills, garden edging and hedging, room skirting, lintels, quoins, rolling pins, candle sticks and ashtrays. Every Cornish churchyard has examples of slate headstones. The finished stone was taken by tramways to be shipped from nearby wharves or transported by rail from

Camelford Station Slaughterbridge ( kw, Tre war Ponshal), Treague and Camelford Station ( kw, Gorsav Reskammel) are three adjoining settlements in north Cornwall, England. They straddle the boundary of Forrabury and Minster and Lanteglos by Camelford civil ...

. Any waste product was heaped up in spoil tips or t=if the quarry was by the coast, simply dumped in the sea.

Industrial remains

The remains of whims, dressing sheds and food and powder stores litter the cliffs above the quarries. Most are in a ruinous state but the offices, powerhouse and smithy belonging to Long Grass quarry now serve as Tintagel's youth hostel. Well-preserved whims can be seen at Lambshouse and Caroline quarries and the remains of a toolshed perches on the clifftop above Caroline quarry. Caroline quarry also has a large cave hacked into the cliff face by quarrymen- the cave gives its name to Hole Beach, a surfing beach below the quarry workings. In between Gull Point and Dria quarries is

, an abandoned loading dock cut into the side of the cliff, and another disused wharf can be found at Port William to the north of Trebarwith Strand. The most visible quarry building in Tintagel is the engine house at the Prince of Wales quarry. Built in 1870, this once housed a

Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

compound

beam engine A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newco ...

that both pumped water out of the pit and hauled trucks of slate from the workings at nearby Bowithick quarry. The building was restored in 1976.

Legacy

Despite Tintagel having a centuries-old slate quarrying history, ever since the publication of Tennyson's

Idylls of the King ''Idylls of the King'', published between 1859 and 1885, is a Literature cycle, cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; Poet Laureate from 1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knig ...

in 1859, the focus of tourism in the village has been on

King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...

. However these quarries are testament to an actual rather than a fictitious history. Despite many of them occupying a spectacular coastal location, there is currently no visitor centre, no tourists are directed here and the only informational signage in place is at the Prince of Wales site.