CAMBORNE’S SALUTE TO CAP’N DICK
Dick Bodily travelled to Camborne to take in the Trevithick Day festivities and soak up some of the local history.
The district around Camborne, Redruth and St Day is steeped in industrial history. It’s not like the Cornwall that tourists see, it’s more like the areas of northern England that were once famed for coal mining. The mining here though was for copper, tin and other precious minerals. A square mile near St Day and Gwennap was at one time said to be the richest square mile in the world such was the value of copper being raised there. Although nowadays a quiet old mining village, St Day was a rough and ready place during its copper mining boom, so much so that a deputation of armed God-fearing respectable men marched from Redruth to teach the rowdy St Day miners a lesson for causing trouble in their town. The miners were all busy down the mines on United Downs so it was left to the St Day women to give Redruth’s
