Did anyone get photos?
I think along with Hamilton Jenkin's quote about Old Beam, it would give a proper insight into the less glamourous of Cornish mines.
Here it is again, for the record.....
"The lodes in the Beam mine varied in width from a few inches to 6 feet but they were generally payable however narrow, owing to their being composed of almost pure cassiterite. The country rock, however was in many places so soft and porous that the men were put to the utmost shifts to prevent the sand courses and liquid clay from running in upon them. For this reason, the workings were kept as small as possible and heavily timbered, the lagging both in the shafts and levels being caulked with turves, furze and even grass. The timber frequently became loaded with fungus after it had been a short time in place, and the air throughout the mine was dead and heavy. "Nearly all who worked in Beam Mine suffered from miners consumption" the Parlimentary Commission was told in 1864. "They were all old men at the age of forty, but I should not call our miners old at that age. In fact, riding through the district, if you saw them you would say 'that is a beam man' "
A miner said:- "It was a bad air mine which killed scores of men, The mine was full of timber which eats the air, they could not work hard or long in the same place and often the candles would not burn unless placed at an angle to let the grease drip. He felt faint when underground, had headache, trembling of the limbs and could scarcely climb for weakness of the legs. "But we cannot always choose where we work when we want money".
I wonder if they would have opted for Benefits these days...