Sharkham Point Iron Mine was an
iron mine
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the ...
at
Sharkham Point, near the town of
Brixham
Brixham is a coastal town and civil parish, the smallest and southernmost of the three main population centres (the others being Paignton and Torquay) on the coast of Torbay in the county of Devon, in the south-west of England. Commercial fish ...
in
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
. The mine was worked for around 125 years and employed at its peak 100 workers. It was primarily an
open cast mine
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow.
This form of mining ...
, but five
shafts
''Shafts'' was an English feminist magazine produced by Margaret Sibthorp from 1892 until 1899. Initially published weekly and priced at one penny, its themes included votes for women, women's education, and radical attitudes towards vivisection ...
and six
adit
An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, ventilated, and minerals extracted at the lowest convenient level. Adits ...
s are also mentioned in reports of the site. Some are still accessible today, but since the area was used as a
rubbish tip
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
in the 1950s and 1960s, much of the archaeology has been covered over.
History
The first reliably attributable reference to an iron deposit at Sharkham Point appears to have been made by Henry De la Beche in his memoir of 1839 where he said: "A large iron-lode runs nearly east and west from Sharkham Point, near Brixham, to Upton, and was extensively worked towards the end of 1837".
The mining of iron ore at Sharkham Point was however underway as early as 1790 when a discovery of "considerable quantities of kidney ore" was reported. A century later at the peak period of operation the mine employed 100 workers and shipped ore to South Wales and West Hartlepool for smelting.
It was reported that mining (by the Brixham Hematite Iron Mining Company Ltd) ceased at Sharkham Point in 1914–15.
["Brixham Hematite Iron Mining Company Ltd. Truro Registry Company No 43. Incorporated 1865. Dissolved by 1914", Reference BT 286/85, Records of the Board of Trade and of successor and related bodies, The National Archives, Kew, London.] This marked the period when the mining industry across the whole of the south-west region finally reached the point of large scale economic collapse. However, in common with other mines some dump picking may have continued into the 1930s.
References
Iron mines in England
Brixham
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