Bere Alston Mine, Bere Alston Mines, Bere Alston (Beeralstone), Tavistock District, Devon, England, UK

A lead mine referred to by the famous British mineral collector Phillip Rashleigh (1729-1811), who, in writing to his fellow Cornish mineralogist John Hawkins sometime around 1790, notes that "In consequence of your telling me that some Fluors of a different Colour to mine were flung away on the Shammels [stopes] at Beer Alston Mine and that [the mine] Captain John Vivian knew where to find them, I writ to him desiring he would procure me some. He properly applied to Mr Gullet for his liberty, who writ me a most impertinent letter on the occasion - on which I shall have no further intercourse with him". Clearly, the tribulations of mineral collecting are nothing new!

A merger was formed in 1820, with the mines being named "Beer Alston Mines. This included South Hooe Mine and the Birch and Cleve Lode (the latter subsequently being included into South Tamar Consols). The mines, as in many of the mines here, were rich in silver, South Hooe occasionally running as high as 1800 oz to the ton, Bere Alston Mine half this. The highest production of silver was in 1814-15, when 3 tons of silver was produced.

Although the plant of Beer Alston Mines was put up for sale in 1820-21, a new company was formed in 1835 as the Tamar Silver Lead Mine, with working resuming then resuming at South Hooe. By 1850 there were 7 engines and 200 people employed here; in 1861 it was described as the deepest lead mine in England. Operations ceased in 1885, by which time the workings had reached 250 fathoms below adit.

NB: Rashleigh's books "British Mineralogy - "Specimens of British Minerals selected from the cabinet of Phillip Rashleigh, 1797 - [ditto] Second part 1802", include 51 hand coloured plates and are highly collectable, and his own superb collection is on view at the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro.

References:
Mines of Devon, Volume 1: The Southern Area, A K Hamilton Jenkins 1974.