Having just had a look at the excellent album/trip report recently uploaded for the La Mejicana Mine in Argentina, the mention to Chilecito caught my attention. There is a terrrace of granite houses at Lelant in Cornwall named Chilecito Villas, built in 1903.
I have been photographing and recording foreign names of buildings/streets in Cornwall for about 15 years. The names of houses inscribed in glass fanlights, on granite gate posts etc. are found in most of Cornwall's mining districts connecting these settlements with mines, companies and mining areas worldwide. As they give vital clues to the areas in which return migrants lived and worked in the C19th and C20th I think they are a really significant part of our mining heritage. But they are disappearing fast.
Some of the names appear in ornate glass fanlights that are ripped out to install double glazing. Others are simply dropped by people who have no idea or interest in the history behind the name of the property they have bought. I did some research a few years ago looking the 1948 Electoral Register for Cornwall that gives addresses and recorded all the foreign house names that appeared in this. I discovered that the stock of foreign names has fallen by about 50% between 1948 and 2004.
Below are a few examples of those I have discovered:
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Sadly the house name is no longer displayed on this property in Druids Road, Illogan Highway, recalling the Kolar Gold Fields in India. It's a victim of double glazing. Not sure if the house name is retained by the new owners...
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A great example in Enys Road, Camborne. A lot of Camborne men worked in the Robinson Deep Mine, while many others worked in the iron mines of Pennsylvania, including some of my Polkinghorne ancestors.
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Here's one from Down Under at Park Bottom near Pool.
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A street name in St Ives recalling the famous Calumet and Hecla Mine where a lot of St Ives men worked in the early C20th
Since foreign house/street names are present in Cornwall, I wondered whether anyone has noticed a similar practice in mining areas elsewhere in the UK?
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