BOSCOPPA - a Farm and mine near St. Austell 

The historic Boscoppa farm was just east of Charlestown, west of St. Blazey, across the road from 
Tregrehan Manor, and Boscoppa Mine about 1/2 mile west of the farm.   There were 2 mines named 
Boscoppa; the later mine was described by Dines as 'a small mine in killas country' (that is, where the 
mineral-bearing lode ran through sedimentary rock rather than granite) and was recorded as having produced 
27 tons of black tin during the 1870s, and a little more from openwork in 1899.  It was probably worked by 
just two men.

Boscoppa Downs and Common were between the Farm and Holmbush, which was also a village separate
from St. Austell.  Valerie Brokenshire writes that 'Boscoppa Downs had many mines, and leading from Mr. Allen's 
farm at Boscoppa is a labyrinth of tunnels, adits and shafts.   It is said that when the mines were all working 
one could walk from Boscoppa to Crinnis underground.'  

Near where the Carlyon Hotel now stands, A.L. Rowse describes a lovely summer afternoon some years earlier, when 
guests of the Carlyon's, playing lawn tennis in their crisp white linens, felt the ground suddenly collapse into one of 
those mining tunnels!   (At the farm next door, the neighbouring men put up a hay rick ner the house - when they 
returned the next day, the rick and all the hay had disappeared.)

According to R. Morton Nance's " A guide to Cornish Place Names " 3rd Edition, the Cornish meaning of the place 
name is

 Bos(bod,bo) m.or f.; plural, bossow = dwelling  OR  bos, pl bosow,=bush
 Cop= summit

According to older walking guides of the Parish, the "old farm buildings" were attractive, and though ruins, still evoked
a sense of contentment, as nestled in a lovely woods they looked over the Downs and Commons to the sea. 

Current-day maps have a location marked "Boscoppa" which is not the same as the original setting - it's on the far
western side of what once was Boscoppa Downs.