A selection of paintings, drawings & jottings

Henry

While driving around Cornwall scouting for derelict mine buildings to serve as photographic references we spotted a chimney sticking up from behind some trees.  So we pulled off the road by the entrance to a field.

While wondering how to get at the chimney, which was on private land, a gentleman in another car pulled up beside us.  Instead of telling us to move on, as we expected, he began passing the time of day with us and when he heard why we were there began to tell us about the mine buildings which used to stand there.

In addition to the lone chimney there was a full-sized engine house and a smaller building with a chimney.  He even had some old photos of them right there with him!  I took pictures of the four old prints.  Two were from around the time of his youth and two from earlier.

I wrote down some contact details plus the address of this Website and when I handed them to him he frowned and clearly thought some joke was being played on him.  I had written my name, Chris Chapman,  "But that's my son's name!" he said, "I'm Henry Chapman!"

Henry told us that the two buildings were demolished by the army over fifty years ago because they claimed they were unsafe - personally I think they just wanted to blow something up.