Harvey's Foundry Trust - HISTORY - History of Hayle - Preservation & Development in Hayle, Cornwall

History of Hayle

Download and read Hayle's History

S.R.Thomas has written a 14 page account of Hayle's History that we are offering you to download and read:-

Hayle, Cornwall - A Brief History by S.R.Thomas (513kb)

Here are a couple of extracts to give you a flavour of the document:-

"...By the time of the Doomsday Survey (c.1086), most of the area we now know as Hayle fell within the manor of Conarditon, or Conerton, a name existing today in the form of Connor Downs, a nearby village. This was under the rule of Brictric, a Saxon nobleman, passing to the Arundel famiy in the thirteenth century and to the Hawkins of Trewithen in the nineteenth century."

"...Richard Trevithick, working at the foundry amongst engineers William West (a Cornishman and another Harvey son-in-law), Arthur Woolf and others, was to perfect inventions numerous and wide-ranging : the renowned "Cornish" Boiler and Engine; the screw propeller for ships; in 1804 the world's first railway locomotive and arguably, the world's first motor car. For following the successful development of high-pressure engines, a highpressure steam vehicle, cast at Hayle, was given its first road trial in Camborne in1801 and in1802 was driven on the road in London, successfully for some five or so miles."

"...Probably the largest single industry in Hayle, a munitions works of the National Explosives Company at Upton Towans, employing some 1,500 during the 1914 war, was not established until 1888 and despite some tragic and spectacular accidents was not to have a lasting influence on the town. Of no local origin and sited at the town's edge, it has disappeared into the memory of but a few since it closed in 1919, though that area of Upton Towans is still known locally as "Dynamite". However, whatever relics remain on the duneland site are now carefully preserved under the aegis of Cornwall Wildlife Trust."

"...Hayle flourished during the nineteenth century years of industrial expansion and declined with the rest of the country when the recession set in. Today it has a very different character for the twentieth century brought the tourist and a shift of emphasis to its three miles of golden sands and surrounding countryside, although it escaped the fate of becoming a characterless tourist trap."

HARVEY'S FOUNDRY TRUST, John Harvey House, 24 Foundry Square, Hayle, Cornwall, TR27 4HH

Registered in England No. 4764003

Registered Charity No. 1112920

HISTORY - History of Hayle

History of Hayle

Download and read Hayle's History

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