Camborne & Around Through Time

The Manor of Tehidy was owned by the Basset family as Lords of the Manor from Norman times until 1916 and they remain a legend with their name on streets, public houses and Camborne's town clock. Their fortune grew through mining, land ownership and marriages with rich local families. When the young Nicholas Holman and Richard Trevithick became friends they could never have imagined the impact they would have on engineering, society and the town of Camborne. Nicholas Holman helped Richard Trevithick with his 'Roaring Puffing Devil' locomotive, which made the famous run up Camborne Hill on Christmas Eve 1801 - an event regarded as the birth of mechanised transportation. Ivor Corkell and David Thomas take us on a journey through time to explain just how these famous names and many other local businesses at the time influenced the industrial town of Camborne into what it is today.

Ivor Corkell is a local author and lives in Camborne, Cornwall.David Thomas has lived in Camborne for over fifty years and was educated in the Roskear Infants' School and later Basset Road Junior Boys School, both in Camborne. He was later employed by the Institute of Cornish Studies near Camborne and for almost the last thirty years has worked as an Archive Assistant and Archivist at Cornwall Record Office in Truro for Cornwall Council with a Diploma in Archive Administration. David has collected photographic images of his native area for four decades and in his very limited spare time manages to be the President and Recorder of the Camborne Old Cornwall Society, and Parish Clerk and Chairman of the Parochial Church Council at Camborne Parish Church, with which he has a lifelong association. He also enjoys walking in the Cornish countryside, researching local history and is frequently in demand as a speaker on local Cornish topics.