The Horn of Plenty and The Devonshire Great Consolidated Copper Mining Company By John C. Goodridge

The Mine and its Times

In the Spring of 1866 the Devonshire Great Consolidated Copper Mining Company took a lease from the Duke of Bedford’s Devonshire Estate for a plot of land amounting to a little under a hectare near the hamlet of Gulworthy about two miles south-west of Tavistock,.and close to the road to Gunnislake The rent was set at £2.50 per annum and the term was for 70 years. The company planned to build a large house on this site for the manager of their mine, at the time an extraordinarily successful example of Victorian mining enterprise. Although within the area or sett of land granted to the company by the estate for mining purposes, permission to build a house had to be separately negotiated.

In the event the house, known for many years as Tamar View, was, for the next fifty two years, occupied by two individuals closely connected with the Devon Great Consols Mining Company with their families. This extends well after the mine had ceased operating in 1901 but the story of their lives whilst at Tamar View is closely interwoven with the fortunes of the mine itself to a large measure.

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