Highways Agency

Medieval and Post-Medieval

The A30 follows the main ancient east-west route into west Cornwall. It probably follows the line of a Roman road, and may even have its origins in a prehistoric track. In the 1760s the route was established as a Turnpike road, which included straightening and improving the section across Goss Moor, diverting it away from the narrow sunken lane through Belowda. An anonymous diarist described it, writing in 1795:

"Bodmin to the Indian Queen - 11 miles of the most excellent road mostly upon a level. All moorland, not a tree to be seen on this road"

The new A30 route passes through a series of well-preserved strip fields which surround the ancient hamlets of Belowda and Tregoss. Strip fields are typical of medieval (AD 1066 - 1550) 'open-field' farming in Cornwall, but rarely survive in the county today.

The hamlets of Belowda and Tregoss are first mentioned in documents dating from the 13th century AD, but they may pre-date the Norman conquest.

Tinners' settlements on Tregoss Moor are recorded for the first time in 12th century documents, although the rich tin deposits were probably being exploited long before that. By the early 14th century many inhabitants of the area were tinners first and farmers second. A document of 1309 tells us that the parson Ralph de Arundell, one of the major landowners in the area, was forced to take refuge in the Parsonage at St.Columb from an angry mob of tinners from Ruthvoes and Trevarren, after he tried to enforce the payment of dues on tin ore.

The heyday of large-scale Cornish tin extraction was between 1840 and 1860. A slump in the worldwide price of tin from the 1860s led to a collapse in the Cornish market and the mass emigration of miners from Cornwall. Deserted mining features from the most intensive phase of tin extraction can be clearly seen beside the new A30 road, including the scars of large-scale streamworks around the headwaters of the River Fal on Goss Moor, the Royalton Mine buildings, and engine houses on the slopes of Belowda Beacon and Castle-an-Dinas.

Before the industrial revolution, most Cornish tin was extracted by 'streaming' or 'panning'. This involved prospecting for tin ore, usually by digging trial pits in the gravel laid down by streams. Some tinners used dowsing to locate promising spots. Once an ore-bearing lode was discovered, the tinners excavated the deposit and used flowing water to wash away the unwanted material, leaving the heavy pebbles of tin ore (Cassiterite) on the bottom of settling ponds. The new A30 route carefully avoided the well preserved streamworks on Goss Moor, but our archaeology team discovered three groups of prospecting pits nearby, one of which was radiocarbon dated to the medieval period.