A GROUP in St Austell that celebrates history is itself celebrating its 100th anniversary.

The St Austell Old Cornwall Society will, in December, be marking 100 years since it was set up. Then, in January, it will celebrate the centenary of the society’s inaugural meeting with a lunch at the Carlyon Bay Hotel.

The meal will be attended by the Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall, Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho.

The society recently welcomed Roger Radcliffe to speak on “From Trevaunance Cove to Polberro”.

A spokesperson for the club said: “At Trevaunance, the lodes worked are clearly visible up the cliffs. Originally local people worked not only as miners but as boatmen and farmers.

“Trevaunance had a small shipyard and heavy horses pulled boats over planks to the sea at high tide. The Tonkin family of Trevaunance, St Agnes, had become bankrupt maintaining harbours, four of which were destroyed by the weather.

“Under George III, an Act to make a harbour west of Trevaunance Cove was passed on the grounds that wrecks could have been saved had a more suitable one existed previously. This allowed the import of coal for steam engines for the mines and the export of pilchards and tin.

“After the coal revenues stopped, the harbour decayed and was destroyed by weather in 1916. The Ennis family took over the tin rights from the Tonkins and developed the ancient mining site of Wheal Luna.

“The small workings in the cliff side are clearly ancient and are surrounded by a pre-Roman earthwork. In 1750, Borlase described it as ‘the richest mine I’ve ever heard of’. Later it was owned by Isaac Donnithorne when Prince Albert visited in 1846 but shortly after that the mine was closed and an attempt to reopen it in the 1930s by the management of Wheal Kitty was unsuccessful.”