January Cornish Mining Sundowner

Last night's sundowner at the County Arms Hotel in Cornwall's capital city of Truro was well attended by around 30 regulars and some new faces.

Barbara with Dean Eastbury (3rd left) and Nigel and Karen Powell

There was good news of progress by Cornish Metals in the redevelopment of the old South Crofty tin mine in Camborne, which closed in 1998 following over 400 years of continuous production. Recent drilling has confirmed extensions of the historic Great Flat Lode (posting of 12 June 2010) and has discovered tin mineralisation in a new target called the “Wide Formation”, inferred to lie parallel to and beneath the Great Flat Lode. Richard Williams, CEO of Cornish Metals, said earlier in the month “the Wide Formation has been interpreted to exist from exploration drilling conducted in the 1960s but has never been followed up until now.  Discovering a new high-grade zone of tin mineralisation in the middle of a historic mining district is a tremendous outcome, and again demonstrates the exploration potential of the region".

Since acquiring the project in 2016, Cornish Metals has identified the mineral resources for South Crofty using the vast archive of historical production data and more recent drilling. Additionally, Cornish Metals has undertaken extensive pilot-scale water treatment trials and successfully applied for and received the necessary environmental permits to abstract, treat and discharge mine water in order to dewater the mine. Planning permissions for the operation of the mine and re-development of the surface facilities have been secured and construction of the water treatment plant is currently well underway, dewatering of the mine being expected to commence this year.

Mike Hallewell, a regular at the sundowners, is metallurgical consultant to the South Crofty project and Barbara and I travelled to Truro with him by train from Falmouth last night and he told me that metallurgical testwork is proceeding well, and further characterisation later in the year will culminate in DMS and electronic sorting pre-concentration amenability testwork, followed by subsequent downstream flowsheet verification testwork on the resultant pre-concentrated products.

Prior to the closure of South Crofty in 1998 Mike was Mill Superintendent and he was joined at the sundowner with several of his colleagues of that era. Kevin Ross was the General Manager, and Colin Belshaw the Mine Superintendent until the mid 90s. Alan Beattie was the Mechanical Foreman for the mine and Guy Cordingley plant metallurgist.

South Crofty 'old boys': Guy, Mike, Alan, Kevin and Colin

It was particularly good to see Colin Belshaw making a very rare appearance at a sundowner, as it was the first time in nearly 45 years that Colin, Nigel Powell and I have got together since we dominated Camborne School of Mines squash in the 70s and 80s. 

Reunion with Nigel and Colin

Colin was undoubtedly the finest squash player ever at CSM, and after graduating in 1979 he spent many years in Africa and played for the Zambian national team. Although we had some tremendous battles, I never managed to beat him, and during his three years at CSM he won the championship twice. So what happened in 1977 many people ask?  Colin was enjoying his first year at Camborne and the date of the semi-final coincided with the day after a typical student party, which left him in no fit state to even walk around a squash court on the next day, leading to his unfortunate exit and an easy ride for me in the final!

With Colin in 1977

It was a great sundowner last night, followed by an excellent pub meal, so hopefully there will be a good turnout for next month's event, also at the County Arms, Truro, on Wednesday 15th February from 5.30pm.

@barrywills