Yelverton: grid reference SX529704

Otherwise known as Huckworthy Bridge Mine, Willsworthy is situated north of the village of Walkhampton near Yelverton. This is a small mine that is famous for producing some of the UK's finest silver specimens.

It was known to have been at work before 1775 when the potter Josiah Wedgwood visited the then disused mine seeking cobalt as a colouring agent (despite the undoubted presence of cobalt ore here, he was unsuccessful in "bringing any blue colour out of it").

The mine was reopened under the name Willsworthy some time before 1814, but closed in 1817. It was reopened again as Huckworthy Bridge Mine in the 1840's and in 1860-61.

The first record of the mine is in 1797-98, where John Swete records in a manuscript in the County Records Office, Exeter:- '... A miner (who has long been a labourer with me) informs me that between 20 and 30 years ago [say 1770] he was pursuing a copper lode on an estate belonging to Mr Tolcher of Plymouth when on a sudden by sinking his pickaxe into a sort of Gossan (which was, as it were, intermixed with the lode) a body of colbalt fell, and with it a quantity of water.... From this copper mine of Sampford Spinney 4 tons at least, of colbalt was taken, of which 1700lbs was sent to London and sold. Like the Bohemian ore, the colbalt was impregnated with hairs and tresses of the purest silver'.

The ore within the lode has been described by Cornish mineralogist Joseph Carne in 1818: '... the lode in which it was found was about 12 inches wide..... in the 10 fathom level, a vein of white amethystine quartz divided the lode: between this vein of quartz.... and the north wall of the lode was found a vein of rich arsenical cobalt ore (erythrite) with native (capillary) silver was found in a ferruginous matrix from 3-6 inches wide. The space between the quartz vein and the southern wall was occupied by a vein of rich, yellow copper ore (chalcopyrite) from 6-9 inches in width. The silver continued about 6 fathoms in length and was not seen deeper. The copper was not so soon exhausted. The specimens of native silver from this mine have eclipsed all that has been found before in Cornwall - in both size and beauty'.

There are no records of production.