Willsworthy Mine (Huckworthy Bridge Mine), Huckworthy Bridge, Sampford Spiney, Whitchurch, Tavistock District, Devon, England, UK

A small mine that produced the Uk's finest silver specimens. It was known to have been at work before 1775 when the potter Josiah Wedgwood visited the then disused mine seeking cobalt as a colouring agent (despite the undoubted presence of cobalt ore here, he was unsuccessful in "bringing any blue colour out of it") when he went to Cornwall to see the production of china clay at the Carloggas pit. The mine was reopened under the name Willsworthy some time before 1814, but closed in 1817. It was reopened again as Huckworthy Bridge Mine in the 1840's and in 1860-61.

There is confusion about the location of the mine in the literature. Although reports in the Cornish press at the time explicitly state that the mine lay at Huckworthy Bridge in the parishes of Stamford Spinney and Walkhampton, this appears to have passed largely unnoticed. As a consequence, Dines (1956) and others incorrectly place the mine at Willsworthy farm 2.5 miles NE of Mary Tavey. Recorded production is small, only 23 tons of copper ore in the last working, (as well as the 4 tons of cobalt ore. A further 2 tons of cobalt ore is recorded as having been produced in the 1814 working, whether this was sold is not known.

The first report of the mine is in 1797-98, where John Swete records in a manuscript in the County Records Office, Exeter:- "A miner (who has long been a labourer with me) informs me that between 20 and 30 years ago [say 1770] he was pursuing a copper lode on an estate belonging to Mr Tolcher of Plymouth when on a sudden by sinking his pickaxe into a sort of Gossan (which was, as it were, intermixed with the lode) a body of colbalt fell, and with it a quantity of water.... From this copper mine of Sampford Spinney 4 tons at least, of colbalt was taken, of which 1700lbs was sent to London and sold. Like the Bohemian ore, the colbalt was impregnated with hairs and tresses of the purest silver".

A description of the ore within the lode was than given by the Cornish mineralogist Joseph Carne in his well-known paper "On the Discovery of Silver in the Mines of Cornwall", published 1818. "....the lode in which it was found was about 12 inches wide..... in the 10 fathom level , a vein of white amethystine quartz divided the lode: between this vein of quartz ....and the north wall of the lode was found a vein of rich arsenical cobalt ore [erythrite] with native (capillary) silver was found in a ferruginous matrix from 3-6 inches wide. The space between the quartz vein and the southern wall was occupied by a vein of rich, yellow copper ore [chalcopyrite] from 6-9 inches in width. The silver continued about 6 fathoms in length and was not seen deeper. The copper was not so soon exhausted. The specimens of native silver from this mine have eclipsed all that has been found before in Cornwall-in both size and beauty".

At the time specimens were highly sought after by local collectors and mineralogist of the day. The famous English mineral dealer Mr Mawe (see Mick Cooper - "Robbing the Sparry Garniture") was said to have had 200 such specimens in his shop in the Strand (A K Hamilton Jenkin 1974).

Hamilton Jenkin does not provide a NGR for this mine, the NGR given here is for Huckworthy Bridge itself.

References:
Mines of Devon, Volume 1: The Southern Region, A K Hamilton Jenkin 1974

The Metalliferous Mining Region of South West England, H G Dines 1956