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In this superbly illustrated book, the reader is taken on a gentle journey through Devon to discover the fascinating non-metal mines of the county.
They include the Penn Recca slate mine near Buckfastleigh in south Devon, the culm mines of north Devon, the whetstone mines of the Blackdown Hills in east Devon, the Beer Stone mines, also in east Devon, the ball clay mines of south and north Devon, and the lignite (brown coal) mines of Bovey Tracey, south Devon.
The book explores the mines and their history, the methods used by the miners, and something about the miners and their lives. The journey spans 2,000 years, from the time when the Romans tunnelled into the hills near Beer for Beer Stone, to when the last ball clay mine closed in 1999.
These 2,000 years of mining history, although long by human standards, seem insignificant when the time span represented by the deposits that were being mined is considered. The formations exploited range in age from the slates of Penn Recca, around 360 million years old, to the 30 million year old lignites of Bovey Tracey.
The reader is taken on a parallel journey into deep geological time to discover how these rocks came into being, and what the world was like when they formed many millions of years ago.
The book will appeal to readers with an interest in mines and mining, industrial archaeology, geology, history, and landscape, or who just like a good story about some fascinating episodes in the development of the industrial history of Devon.
Richard Edwards has lived and worked for many years as a geologist in Devon. After reading geology at Nottingham University he completed his doctorate at Exeter University, after which he joined the British Geological Survey and worked as a field geologist, firstly in Africa (Zambia) and later in Hampshire, Devon and Somerset. He was involved in the geological surveys of the Newton Abbot, Southampton, Exeter, Minehead and Sidmouth 1:50,000-scale map areas. Apart from Geological Survey maps, memoirs and reports, he has published papers on the Tertiary of Hampshire and Devon, and the Permian of Devon. He is the author of Exmoor Geology (2000) and the Geology of the Jurassic Coast. The Red Coast Revealed - Exmouth to Lyme Regis (2008). He is married with a daughter, and he and his wife live in a village near Exeter.
Imprint: Halsgrove. ISBN 978 0 85704 118 0, hardback, 214x230mm, 160 pages. Published October 2011.