Tin mines, too? Isn't that what brought the Roman's? Tin? to make copper (found on several places in europe) into bronze-- and tin is fairly rare on continent-- and found in Wales and Cornwall?


Certainly tin was important in Roman times, (and before - the Phoenicians used to buy it in Cornwall) and the ore didn't run out until the middle of the C20. Copper was mined in the Lake District, at Coniston, until the end of the C19, and into the v. early C20, I think. But neither have been important over the past hundred years. The only other really important mining opperations have been iron-ore (and that has finished now, so far as I know,) and Salt, which is still a big money-spinner in Cheshire.

"mullock" is a word that you still meet as a dialect word in the East Midlands andd East Anglia, meaning rubbish, or mess. A colleaghue iof mine, if he had a job to do, would always clear up any loose things lying around the work area before he started, saying, "I cain't abear to work wi' arl this mullock about me!"