#i won’t go into the economic impacts of mining in the late 1800s-early 1900s but holy christ

[mycological-mariner]

Cornish history person just started watching Poldark. A friend said she had a theory it was all just funded by the Cornish tourism board and tbh, valid. Lead guy is just too conventionally attractive to be attractive. Everyone has nice hair. Only antagonists have period-appropriate hair (at least for the gents). I don’t like this. I don’t really care about the romance either (obviously) BUT the economic and political side of things is pretty good. I did appreciate mention of the Welsh mines thriving as a part of the reason why Cornish mines were shutting down (obviously not the whole reason and an oversimplification but still). On the topic of the Welsh mines, back in the day, it was Welsh coal that was used to fuel mines up the north coast (Botallack, Levant, Geevor, etc) because it was just more cost effective; Wales was coming up with so much coal they had a surplus and ships could easily come from Wales to Cornwall instead of by land from much farther north and at greater expense. Welsh coal is rare nowadays but if you go up to any mines you might be able to find some burnt chunks. Kind of wished they’d mentioned it in the show because the use of Welsh coal was a part of what kept the mines in Cornwall going. A sort of historical irony.

My main takeaway is basically rich people Fucking Suck