Our local bit of moor is littered with the remains of the mining and quarrying industry of a long time ago. I’ve photographed it before and I dare say I will do again.

This particular bit is, as most of them are, something of a mystery, it’s a huge chunk of wood with iron bolts through it, securing an iron plate on each side and held together with huge nuts the size of a fist. Who knows what its use would have been.

The wood is rotting and decayed, the nuts are rusted so firmly onto the bolts that a whole ocean of WD40 couldn’t undo them and the iron is pitted with rust. It’s strange really because we can’t work out what happened at the time the mines closed. There is too much stuff lying around to imagine the area was cleared but equally there isn’t enough to assume that it was left.

It may be that much of the no longer needed machinery was chucked down the shafts along with lots of granite when they were ‘capped’ some years ago. There is also documented evidence that machinery, even huge items like beam engines were moved around from one location to another.

It may even be that the ex-miners left in the area after the mines closed picked over what was left looking for firewood and stuff to sell. It’s hard to imagine the poverty suffered by those finding themselves out of work more than a hundred years ago in this hostile and difficult terrain, long before the welfare state of Lloyd George existed, so it’s hard to know what lengths people went to in order to stay warm and fed.

What’s certain is that there is little or no wood remaining – almost all of the lintels have been removed from the gaps in the stone-work of the engine houses where the ‘windows’ were – I have no idea whether they were ever glazed. I suspect not. It’s hard to tell now with so much of the area in abject decay.

One thing is certain – the lives and fortunes of a lot of people changed when South Caradon closed. Before this, the area was a boom town and afterwards for a long time life here was very tough indeed. This place is steeped in our industrial history yet for many, it’s barely even noticed as it quietly and slowly decays back into the hillside.

Two years ago, I was bearing my soul and last year, Santa had been.