The book has recently fallen out of print - sorting my garage I discovered a box I had forgotten about and these are now available. Publisher summary below
Mike
Devon Great Consols: A Mine of Mines, by R J Stewart, 2013 435 pages Paperback £24.99 + P&P ?For almost 50 years the history of the Devon Great Consolidated Mines was regarded as one of the great gaps in British mining history. The story of Devon Great Consols can truly be described as epic in the true sense of that overused word. For at least 20 years it was the largest copper mine in Europe producing staggering wealth for its shareholders and for the landowners, successive Dukes of Bedford. For the latter, however, ‘the royalties were never regarded as sufficient compensation for the loss of 140 acres of pheasant coverts’. As the copper ran out DGC had a second life as the producer of half the world’s arsenic. All this can be found in Rick Stewart’s massive history along with coverage of the labour unrest and the mine’s doomed attempt to emulate the great Dolcoath Mine and discover tin at depth below the copper. On closure the mine site was cleared within the terms of the lease and almost nothing of DGC survives at Blanchdown Wood but this book at last does justice to this fabulous ‘mine of mines’.