Miner using a compressed-air rock drill at Great Rock Mine

Work at a mine, such as Great Rock, Hennock, would have been divided between working on the surface and working underground. Those underground would extract the soft ore with picks, bars and shovels. Then, as shown in this photograph, the surrounding granite would be drilled or blasted to access the next section of iron oxide. Until the 1930s this would have been performed by candle-light. After this time carbide lamps were used. The miner in the photo, Anthony Haydon-Baillie, then aged 20, was then living at Yonder Wreyland in Lustleigh. He later went to Canada and was killed in a car accidenr in 1964.