Portreath Tramroad

[1] The ore was exported, and coal and timber were brought in to serve the mining activity and the lime kilns.

The heavy materials were conveyed the few miles between the mines and the port by pack horse or mule, an expensive and time-consuming means of transport.

Seeking an improved means of transport, in 1798 (Francis Basset), "Paid Mr. John Williams subscription towards planning a canal from Portreath £10.

[1] These developments encouraged Basset and Williams to collaborate in projecting a tramroad, and The Portreath Tram Road Company was created by them and their partners, with a capital of £20,000.

The line was a wagonway, in which cast iron plates of L-shaped cross-section were laid on stone blocks.

[5] The proprietors of Portreath Harbour, and the tramroad, permitted only their mines to use those facilities, and for some years, this gave them an enormous competitive advantage.

In time the mining areas served by the tramroad and the railway were closely associated, but Devoran had the disadvantage of being on the English Channel side of Cornwall, so the crossing to Swansea involved a longer and sometimes hazardous passage around Land's End.

In the 1860s, large, easily worked deposits of the minerals started to be extracted in Spain and elsewhere, and the Cornish mines became uneconomic to operate.

Symons described the line in retrospect, writing in 1884: The first tramway laid down in Cornwall, is that connecting Portreath with Poldice mine, near St Day.

Its construction was started about the year 1809, when most of the Gwennap mines were in full operation; as was also North Downs in Redruth.