Bowithick Quarry

Overview

Bowithick Quarry was a 19th-century opencast slate quarry in the Trebarwith Valley near Tintagel, worked in tandem with the neighbouring Prince of Wales Quarry, whose beam engine powered the haulage of Bowithick's own slate.

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History

Bowithick Quarry lay at the eastern end of the Trebarwith Valley slate-working district near Tintagel, one of several inland quarries alongside the coastal workings that stretched between Tintagel Castle and Trebarwith Strand. It worked opencast from at least 1870, in close association with the neighbouring Prince of Wales Quarry: an engine house built there in that year housed a 50-inch Woolf compound beam engine that both pumped water from the Prince of Wales pit and hauled trucks of slate up from Bowithick's own workings nearby. Slate quarried at Bowithick was dressed on site before the finished stone was hauled back across the valley using the shared engine's power. The quarry worked the same bluish-grey Upper Devonian slate -- part of the Penpethy Beds -- as its neighbour, used predominantly for roofing. Production ceased around 1913.

Geology

Worked the bluish-grey Upper Devonian slate of the Penpethy Beds, the same stone worked at the neighbouring Prince of Wales Quarry.

Workings

Worked opencast; slate was dressed at Bowithick before finished stone was hauled across the valley using power from the neighbouring Prince of Wales Quarry's shared beam engine.

Closure

Production ceased around 1913.

What remains

The quarry site is now mostly obscured by a landfill.

Little survives above ground; the site is largely covered by a later landfill.

Related mines

• Prince of Wales Quarry, Trebarwith — The Prince of Wales beam engine hauled trucks of slate over bridges from Bowithick, on the other side of the Trebarwith valley, and the engine house is thought to have worked on until Bowithick closed about 1913.

Recorded claims

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

• Bowithick lay at the eastern end of the Prince of Wales Quarry and the two appear to have been worked in tandem, with slate from both dressed at Bowithick and the finished stone hauled back across the valley using the Prince of Wales engine's power. ¹
• The engine house built at the neighbouring Prince of Wales Quarry in 1870 housed a 50-inch Woolf compound beam engine that both pumped the pit and hauled trucks of slate from Bowithick's own workings. ²
• The quarry worked bluish-grey Upper Devonian slate of the Penpethy Beds, used predominantly for roofing. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Bowithick Quarry — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Tintagel Slate Quarries — Wikipedia

Record created: 2 September 2026 · Last researched: 2 September 2026