Camborne
Camborne is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England. At the 2021 census the population of the parish was 23,831 and the population of the built up area was 20,450. The town lies about inland, but the northern boundary of the parish is the coast, including Hell's Mouth and Deadman's Cove. The coast is followed by the South West Coast Path. As well as Camborne itself, the parish also includes a number of hamlets.
Camborne was formerly one of the most significant tin mining areas in the world. It is home to the Camborne School of Mines.
Geography
Camborne forms the western part of a loose conurbation which stretches to Redruth, to the east. At the 2011 census, the Office for National Statistics defined Camborne to be part of what it called the Redruth built up area, which had a population of 42,690, making it the largest built up area in Cornwall. Cornwall Council similarly defined what it called "Camborne/Pool/Redruth", which had a population of 55,400 in 2011. Following a change in methodology for the 2021 census, Camborne is now considered a separate built up area by the Office for National Statistics, with a population of 20,450.The Camborne and Redruth area lies on the northern side of the Carn Brea/Carnmenellis granite upland which slopes northwards to the sea. The two towns are served by the A30 road, which now bypasses both towns to the north. The former route of the road through the towns was turnpiked in 1839. The villages along the turnpike road between Camborne and Redruth were Roskear, Tuckingmill, Pool and Illogan Highway.
Running from south to north are a number of small streams with narrow river valleys which have been deeply-cut following centuries of tin streaming and other industrial processes. An example is the Red River valley which crosses the A3047 at Tuckingmill. The A30 forms a boundary between the urban area and the agricultural land to the north.
As well as the town itself, the civil parish includes surrounding rural areas and several hamlets or small villages, including Barripper, Bolenowe, Kehelland, Reskadinnick, Penponds, and Troon. The northern boundary of the parish is the coast.
Climate
Camborne has an oceanic climate typical of Cornwall with particularly narrow temperature ranges even by British standards. The absence of a large landmass nearby means that warm air from the continent gets cooled down over the sea in summer. In winter, cold air masses get moderated by the same effect. Rainfall is frequent all year due to moist air from the Gulf Stream.The UK Met Office operate an Upper Air Station in Camborne.
History
Early history
The first mention of the medieval Camborne churchtown is in 1181 although in 1931 the ruins of a probable Romano-British villa were found at Magor Farm, Illogan, near Camborne, and excavated that year under the guidance of the Royal Institution of Cornwall.There are also early Christian sites such as an inscribed altar stone,, and dated to the 10th or 11th centuries, which attests to the existence of a settlement then.
Langdon records seven stone crosses in the parish of which two are at Pendarves. By the late Middle Ages manorial holdings developed in the surrounding area, and church-paths linked the churchtown to the outlying hamlets. Cornish medieval mystery plays were held in a playing place and the churchyard is said to have had a pilgrimage chapel and holy well. John Norden visited in 1584 and described Camborne as "A churche standinge among the barrayne hills". At this time there would have been moors and rough grazing as well as small fields in the surrounding countryside.
By 1708 Camborne had rights to hold markets and three fairs a year. A sign of increasing industrial activity and increasing industrial population is the first chapel built in 1806 and the development of a local Methodist community. In 1823 the population was around 2,000 and in 1841 it was 4,377, with 75 smiths recorded and over two-thirds of the working population employed in the mining industry. In the expanding town gasworks were opened in 1834, the Hayle Railway was built and Holmans opened a small foundry in 1839. The current Market House was completed in 1866.
Camborne was connected to the electric telegraph network in 1863 when the Electric and International Telegraph Company opened stations at Truro, Redruth, Penzance, Camborne, Liskard and St Austell.
Mining
Mining is first recorded locally in the 1400s with early exploitation of the small streams cutting through the mineralised area and from shallow mines following lodes. Adit mining was first recorded in the 16th century. The town is best known as a centre for the former Cornish tin and copper mining industry, having its working heyday during the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Camborne was just a village until transformed by the mining boom which began in the late 18th century and saw the Camborne and Redruth district become the "richest square mile in the old world".As the economic recession of the 1870s led to the first years of mining decline in Camborne, social tensions mounted. In October 1873 thousands of miners, aided and abetted by the townspeople, rioted against a hated, authoritarian police force. One of the greatest shows of mining defiance in Cornish history left the Town Hall vandalised, the Police Station ransacked, and the estimated fifty constables present in the town beaten and scattered. The militia were called in from Plymouth to quell the insurrection, and the Home Secretary, Robert Lowe, asked to be kept informed of events. The Camborne riots were reported in the national newspapers and Sir Colman Rashleigh, JP for Cornwall, had to address the Grand Jury regarding the tumult. The entire Camborne police force was found to be at fault and either removed from duty or transferred as a result. No rioter was ever convicted.
Dolcoath Mine,, the 'Queen of Cornish Mines' was, at a depth of 3,500 feet, for many years the deepest mine in the world, not to mention one of the oldest before its closure in 1921. The last working tin mine in Europe, South Crofty, which closed in 1998, is also to be found in Camborne.
Mining related
Apart from the mines themselves, Camborne was also home to many important related industries, including the once world-renowned foundry of Holman Bros Ltd. Holmans, a family business founded in 1801, was for generations, Camborne's, and indeed Cornwall's largest manufacturer of industrial equipment, even making the famous Sten submachine gun for a stint during the Second World War. The Holman Projector was used by the Royal Navy. At its height Holmans was spread over three sites within Camborne, employing some three and half thousand men. Despite Britain's industrial decline, Compair Holmans Camborne factory finally closed in 2003.A modest quantity of South Crofty tin was purchased by a local enterprise and this gradually dwindling stock is used to make specialist tin jewellery, branded as the South Crofty Collection. Tin originally mined at South Crofty was used to form the bronze medals awarded in the 2012 London Olympics.
Camborne School of Mines
Because of the prior importance of metal mining to the Cornish economy, the Camborne School of Mines developed as the only specialist hard rock education establishment in the United Kingdom, until the Royal School of Mines was established in 1851. Plans for the school were laid out in 1829, leading to the current school in 1888. It now forms part of the University of Exeter; it moved to the university's Tremough campus in 2004.Steam locomotion
On Christmas Eve 1801, the Puffing Devil – a steam-powered road locomotive built by Camborne engineer Richard Trevithick – made its way up Camborne Hill in Cornwall. It was the world's first self-propelled passenger carrying vehicle. The events have been turned into a local song:Cornish language
The Cornish language was the language of the area around Camborne until the beginning of the 18th century and it is recorded that everyone living west of Truro spoke Cornish in 1644. Nicholas Boson wrote that Cornish was spoken as far east as Redruth and Falmouth circa 1700. In 1700 the pioneering Celtic linguist Edward Lhuyd came to Cornwall to study the language and visited Camborne, detailing many aspects of the parish.One of the most important surviving works of medieval Cornish literature is Beunans Meriasek, the Life of St Meriadoc the patron saint of Camborne. In the 19th century the nickname for Camborne people was Mera-jacks, or Merry-geeks, and those who washed in St Meriasek's well were called Merrasicks, Merrasickers, Moragicks or Mearagaks.
In the 20th century several Cornish words and phrases were noted as still in use amongst the inhabitants of Camborne. These include taw tavas and allycumpoester.
Although a limited amount of Cornish was taught in some schools in west Cornwall during the 19th and early 20th centuries the first school to properly dedicate itself to teaching revived Cornish was the Mount Pleasant House school run by E. G. Retallack Hooper in the post-Second World War period. By 1984 Cornish was being taught in Troon and Camborne primary schools as well as Camborne secondary school and there was a Cornish language playgroup. In 2000 Roskear and Weeth schools were teaching Cornish.
In the 2011 United Kingdom census, although there was no specific Cornish language question, thirty people living in the parish of Camborne declared that Cornish was their main language at home, thirteen in Troon and Beacon.
Governance
There are two tiers of local government covering Camborne, at parish and unitary authority level: Camborne Town Council and Cornwall Council. The town council is based at the Passmore Edwards Building at The Cross. The building was completed in 1895, funded by philanthropist John Passmore Edwards, and also serves as the town's library.Since the 2010 general election the town has formed part of the Camborne and Redruth constituency. The seat was won at the 2024 general election by Perran Moon of the Labour Party.