The Silverlode of Sark (Tom Bliss)

A song by the singer-songwriter Tom Bliss about a Cornish miner who finds love and death on Sark while searching for its silver lode, written from stories Bliss heard on the island and released as the title track of The Silverlode, his album with Tom Napper.

The mining history in this record

Silver-lead was mined at Sark's Hope on Little Sark from the 1830s until the 1840s, and the mine drew its workforce from Cornwall: two hundred and fifty Cornish miners are said to have been employed there. The 1841 census of Little Sark lists forty men working at the Silverlode mine who were born in England, fifteen of them living with family. One, Thomas Row, aged 25, was living with Rachel, aged 20, and two infants born on Sark, which bears out the island story that one of the miners married a local girl.

Tom Bliss wrote the song only from the stories he heard on Sark about the mine. It tells of a Cornish miner who finds love and death in the Channel Islands while searching for the silver lode. The mine disaster of 1845 killed ten men, but Thomas Row was not among them, so the song's ending is poetic licence.

People

Tom Bliss, singer-songwriter, guitar and mandocello, who wrote the song. Tom Napper, his partner on the album. Thomas Row, a miner on Little Sark in 1841 whose household fits the island story the song draws on.

Legacy today

The song is the title track of The Silverlode (Slipjig Music, Slip 006), a folk album by Tom Bliss and the multi-instrumentalist Tom Napper that mixes Bliss's own songs with traditional and contemporary material, reviewed in issue 52 of The Living Tradition. Hearing it prompted a family historian to trace the Sark miners through the 1841 and 1851 censuses, finding most of the single men back in Cornwall by 1851.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Tom Bliss's song The Silverlode of Sark tells of a Cornish miner who finds love and death in the Channel Islands while searching for the silver lode. (documented fact) ^1,2
• The song is the title track of The Silverlode, an album by Tom Napper and Tom Bliss on Slipjig Music (Slip 006). (documented fact) ²
• Bliss wrote the song from the stories he heard on Sark about the mine. (contemporary account) ¹
• Two hundred and fifty Cornish miners were employed at the Sark silver mine. (unverified claim, uncertain) ¹
• The 1841 census of Little Sark lists forty English-born men working at the Silverlode mine; Thomas Row, 25, was living with Rachel, 20, and two infants born on Sark. (documented fact) ¹
• Thomas Row was not among the ten men killed in the mine disaster of 1845. (reasonable inference) ¹

Mines

• Sark's Hope Silver Mine — Sark
  The song is about a Cornish miner at the Sark silver mine, written from stories told on the island about it.

Disasters

• Sark's Hope Mine flooding, 1845 — 1845
  The song ends in its miner's death; the mine's 1845 disaster killed ten men, though not the miner whose story it draws on.

Real-world mining concepts used here

Lode, Silver

Sources

1. (secondary) Cornish Miners on Sark — Family Tree Forum
2. (secondary) Tom Napper & Tom Bliss, The Silverlode (CD review) — The Living Tradition

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 19 October 2026