Bagalow Quarry

Overview

Bagalow was a slate quarry cut into the cliffs above Bagalow Cove on the north Cornish coast between Tintagel and Trebarwith, established in 1834 by a local man, Edgar Jeffrays, and worked into the early twentieth century. It was quarried the way that coast demanded: strongpoints built on the cliff edge, men lowered on ropes to work the face, and the pulleys turned by whims that donkeys or horses walked round. The near-vertical cliffs of the cove are almost entirely the work of the quarrymen.

History

Bagalow quarry was established in 1834 by a local man, Edgar Jeffrays, who also dug another quarry at the top of Sanding Road — the road used by donkeys carrying sand up from Trebarwith Strand for agricultural use. The quarry site cuts a sharp right angle into the cliffs above Bagalow Cove, immediately south of Dria Quarry, and was worked from the 1830s into the early part of the twentieth century. Working a cliff face is not like working a hillside. To get at the rock, strongpoints were built on the cliff edge and men were lowered down on ropes to the face; the pulleys were operated by whims powered by donkeys or horses walking a circle at the top. It is a method that leaves very little in the way of buildings and a great deal in the way of altered coastline: the near-vertical cliffs of the cove are almost entirely the work of the quarrying rather than of the sea. Bagalow was one of a string of such quarries along this coast. Slate quarrying between Tintagel Church and Trebarwith Strand began probably in the late fifteenth century, and the last of the group, Long Grass Quarry, closed in 1937. Getting the slate away was as awkward as getting it out: a boat would be moored below the cliffs and a derrick perched on the cliff edge used to load it, and at Penhallic Point a wharf was made by cutting the cliff edge back to a hundred-foot vertical face against which ships could lie in the natural deep water while the slate was lowered by crane.

Geology

The quarry provided a source of Upper Devonian slate and Lower Carboniferous slates of a greyish-green colour, used predominantly for roofing. This is the north Cornish slate belt, where mudstones laid down in a Devonian and early Carboniferous sea were later compressed and recrystallised so that they split along a cleavage that cuts across the original bedding — which is what makes a slate a slate, and what allows a block to be riven into sheets thin enough to roof a house.

Geological setting: Slate and Regional Metamorphism (well documented example)

Workings

A cliff quarry, cut as a sharp right angle into the cliffs above Bagalow Cove. Strongpoints were built on the cliff edge and the men worked the face suspended on ropes from them; the pulleys that raised and lowered them, and the stone, were driven by whims turned by donkeys or horses. Nothing read for this record gives a workforce or an output.

Closure

The quarry was worked into the early part of the twentieth century. No source read here gives a closure date or a reason. The Cornish slate trade as a whole was in long decline by then against Welsh slate carried cheaply by rail, and a cliff quarry worked by rope and donkey whim was not the kind of operation that survived that competition — but that is not stated of Bagalow anywhere consulted and is not asserted here.

What remains

Disused, with its most interesting remains at the top rather than the face. A relatively intact horse whim survives at the far north-eastern corner of the cliff face, built using the herringbone technique common in Cornish hedges, together with the hollow where its central bearing stone will have sat. Nearby are the remains of a stone feed store for the animals that worked the whim.

A relatively intact horse whim at the north-eastern corner of the cliff face, built in the herringbone technique of Cornish hedging, with the hollow for its central bearing stone; the remains of a stone feed store for the whim animals; and the quarried cliffs of the cove themselves.

Related mines

• Gillow Slate Quarry — Two of the same string of coastal slate quarries worked into the cliffs between Tintagel and Trebarwith, both getting the same greyish-green Upper Devonian and Lower Carboniferous roofing slate, both worked by whim from the clifftop, and both surveyed together for the National Trust by Adam Sharpe in 1990.

Nearby mines

• Bowithick Quarry — 0.7 km N
• Tintagel Slate Quarries — 0.9 km N
• Gillow Slate Quarry — 2.5 km N
• Delabole Slate Quarry — 3.3 km SE
• De Lank Quarries — 11.9 km SE

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Bagalow quarry was established by a local man, Edgar Jeffrays, in 1834; he also dug another quarry at the top of Sanding Road, the road used by donkeys carrying sand up from Trebarwith Strand for agricultural use. ¹
• In order to work the cliffs, strongpoints were built on the cliff edge and men were lowered down on ropes to work the rock face; the pulleys were operated by whims powered by donkeys or horses. ¹
• The quarry provided a source of Upper Devonian slate and Lower Carboniferous slates of a greyish green colour, used predominantly for roofing. ¹
• The quarry site cuts a sharp right angle into the cliffs above Bagalow Cove immediately due south of Dria Quarry, and the near vertical cliffs of the cove are almost entirely the work of quarrying. ¹
• The coast path between Tintagel Church and Trebarwith Strand passes a number of coastal slate quarries; slate quarrying began here probably in the late 1400s and the last of them, Long Grass Quarry, closed in 1937. ²
• North of Hole Beach small quarries worked the cliff side, with strong points built into the cliff face and cradles and buckets lowered down it. ²
• A relatively intact horse whim remains at the far north-eastern corner of the cliff face, built using the herringbone technique common in Cornish hedges, with the hollow where the whim's central bearing stone will have sat, and nearby the remains of a stone feed store for the animals which operated it. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Bagalow Quarry — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Tintagel Slate Quarries, Cornwall — Cornwall Calling

Record created: 4 September 2026 · Last researched: 5 September 2026