I am familiar with the CRO and have a lot of stuff from there.

I have a few queries regarding local plans/archives

1. I gather that Liskeard Museum has a fair old selection of plans. Are these from the old Duchy Record office and are they duplicated at the CRO? - Edit: I did go there the other day, but they are far to busy to allow me to have a rummage. I assume some others of you have.

2. I note that the CRO has a few of the Devon side of the Tamar Valley mine plans. Can anyone point towards where the others reside?

3. Am I right in thinking that the Duke of Bedford's stuff is in a private collection.

4. Am I missing any other places to look at old paperwork/plans? (East Cornwall - Tamar Valley).

I am quite keen on expanding my collection of digital data and good plans/maps are essential for the preparation for a good field (hole) trip.

I see from Dines that there are a fair few references a la Cornish mines. I know that the MRO stuff got shipped back from London (or wherever it was) to the CRO, am I right in thinking the Devon plans are still up there? I can't imagine why they would agree to shift them down to Kernow.

All info cheerfully received. :thumbsup:

found a few bits in the archives office for the tamar valley mines so a search here may help

http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/homepage/creativityandculture/archives/archivecatalogue.htm 

Cheers Dave, they have a few, but looking at Dines, there are many many more than they have.

Since quite a lot of them are well in the "plans" time range, they must be somewhere.

The Devon MRO plans have all been at Devon Records Office Exeter for a long time. Digital copies of most of these can be obtained at a price from the Coal Authority.

on the BGS website somewhere you will find a location guide for MRO plans for the whole UK, don't know how complete it is.

Some of the MRO plans have gone missing over the years, for instance I have been able to find Ivybridge Consols (Devon) Great Work plan (sections at CRO Truro but plan appears to be missing), Florence & Tonkin. It appears some of these may have been previously microfilmed, copies held by the BGS possibly & by various Minesearch companies.

Re Bedford Estate plans, as the estate has split up these have gone to various private collections. Of those I have seen, some are pretty identical to the MRO plans but others show much more & include plans never deposited with the MRO.

There are a great many other plans at the Truro Exeter & Plymouth & in the RIC, some of which you will find in online catalogues but many you will find only by trawling through their hard copy catalogues, or are in uncatalogued collections. There are also apparently many plans in for instance South Crofty archives of sites all over the place.

I did get a fair way to making a single catalogue of everything I had come across in all the above, but a computer glitch lost a lot of this. Will try to restore it at some stage.

The BGS have a lot of Dines original notes, they will supply copies.

Lozz.

Cheers Ali. Am I right in thinking they operate a similar "fee for camera" like the CRO?

I'm very much on the case with expanding my electronic library and am keen to collaborate with anyone else in the same boat.

The BGS have a lot of Dines original notes, they will supply copies.

Lozz.

Interesting Lozz. I gather Dines was often quite "relaxed" when he was compiling his tome. For a long time I was working off google earth shots, the 6" Ham Jenks maps and Dines. Some of his descriptions are pretty far out.

He has gone through many plans and quite a lot of them are pretty illegible. It is one hell of an achievement though.

Do eleborate on the "notes" and their form and how you obtain them.

I gather there are quite a lot of sources for free (or reasonable) useful information. I'm primarily concerned with plans/physical descriptions at the moment.

The BGS have a lot of Dines original notes, they will supply copies.

Lozz.

Interesting Lozz. I gather Dines was often quite "relaxed" when he was compiling his tome. For a long time I was working off google earth shots, the 6" Ham Jenks maps and Dines. Some of his descriptions are pretty far out.

He has gone through many plans and quite a lot of them are pretty illegible. It is one hell of an achievement though.

Do eleborate on the "notes" and their form and how you obtain them.

I gather there are quite a lot of sources for free (or reasonable) useful information. I'm primarily concerned with plans/physical descriptions at the moment.

Hi Stuey, I got a copy of Dines original notes for a mine, part of which is on some land I own, the particular notes I obtained seemed hastily written, back of a fag packet comes to mind, there are many descepancies beween Dines and the actuall world, I found this out when trying to piece together a current layout of the mine and it's shafts etc, a big help to me was the Mining Journal entries for the period concerned, I used to go to the Redruth Studies Library when it was in the Passmore Edwards building and transcribe all the entries and reports for the mine concerned.
After a lot of poking around at the CRO I found a mine plan in the collection of an old mining engineering firm down Redruth way which was good, they let me trace it at the CRO, now armed with said plan I overlaid it on a modern OS map, nothing lined up, I then twigged Mag Declination and that the plans ref was mag North, I phoned BGS and they gave me another number to phone, the guy said what year and what location, I told him xx mine 1865 he said 20 degrees (from my memory) I re did the overlay and everything lined up.
As regards obtaining copies of Dines original notes from the BGS I seem to remember I phoned them up and quoted the abandoned mine record number, they said they had his notes for that one send us the money (wasn't a lot) I did and I recieved said notes by return of post. If you are interested in a specific mine then the Mining Journals (the MJ) are well worth looking at, you soon get used to finding the particular reports for a mine in any particular issue but take a magnifying glass!

Lozz.

Forgot to say, the tithe maps often contain a lot of surface information c 1840 for many of the mines, I got a copy for the Fowey Consols area, many of the shafts and surface buildings are named, CRO have the originals, Redruth Studies have copies on fiche etc, I think there is a plan to digitize them, I do know that the Cheshire tithe maps have been digitized and are available free to view online.

Lozz.

While I remember and for those not in the know, the London Gazzette usualy contained the winding up orders for most mines, the Gazzette is free to search online, by using this you can guestimate any mine sales date as a starter to trawling local newspapers for sales particulars, these old sales particulars usually list just about anything that was worth any value at the mine and also some mining terms you might not have heard before ie: what's a Bishops Head?

Lozz.

While I remember and for those not in the know, the London Gazzette usualy contained the winding up orders for most mines, the Gazzette is free to search online, by using this you can guestimate any mine sales date as a starter to trawling local newspapers for sales particulars, these old sales particulars usually list just about anything that was worth any value at the mine and also some mining terms you might not have heard before ie: what's a Bishops Head?

Lozz.

A bishops head is the iron piece on top of a king post of an angle bob or balance bob. this was used for the connecting of flat rods.

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While I remember and for those not in the know, the London Gazzette usualy contained the winding up orders for most mines, the Gazzette is free to search online, by using this you can guestimate any mine sales date as a starter to trawling local newspapers for sales particulars, these old sales particulars usually list just about anything that was worth any value at the mine and also some mining terms you might not have heard before ie: what's a Bishops Head?

Lozz.

A bishops head is the iron piece on top of a king post of an angle bob or balance bob. this was used for the connecting of flat rods.

Correct.
But what apart from being a wind instrument is a Bugle?

Lozz.

From a sales particulars:

"1 traveller with bishops head complete"

"2 pair bugles"

Would like to know what the traveller is also the bugles.

Lozz.

From a sales particulars:

"1 traveller with bishops head complete"

"2 pair bugles"

Would like to know what the traveller is also the bugles.

Lozz.

The traveller would be the set of wheels carrying the flat rods.
But what a bugle is beats me. It doesn't even suggest something misspelled, unless it may be buckles? They would be used to connect the end of the flat rods to the bishops head.

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From a sales particulars:

"1 traveller with bishops head complete"

"2 pair bugles"

Would like to know what the traveller is also the bugles.

Lozz.

The traveller would be the set of wheels carrying the flat rods.
But what a bugle is beats me. It doesn't even suggest something misspelled, unless it may be buckles? They would be used to connect the end of the flat rods to the bishops head.

Thanks, it's definately "bugles" as printed in the Royal Cornwall Gazette c 1866.

The flat rods etc are all listed together:

" 100 2 in (inch) flatrods with pullies and stands"

At the particular location there were two runs of flatrods to two seperate surface balance bobs at two seperate shafts, there was a common driving engine that was situate equidistant between the two shafts. The engine was listed in the sale as "An 18" and 36" cylinder combined horizontal pumping winding and stamping engine"
Although not stated in the sale I believe from other records that it was a Simms engine.

Lozz.