Carbis Bay Holidays :: History of Hawkes Point
There was a copper mine at Hawkes Point but was abandoned in 1854 and reopened a number of times upto 1902, renamed Wheal Fanny Adela. This was the miner's daughter (as was the custom), it was a very small mine, the shaft was some 25 fathoms deep [150ft]. As well as tin, copper & lead, it produced small quantities of cobalt and nickel-silver but by 1871 it was "knacked" and a few years later the building of the track from St Erth to St Ives had begun.
A Mr Hawke had been a smallholder here and he used to collect any flotsam and jetsam off the beach after a gale. He used the old miner's steps cut into the cliff on the south side of the point. These led down to Porth Kidney beach originally 'Porth Kinnis' which meant 'firewood' beach, so he was not the first 'wrecker' to comb the beach. Perhaps the last to use these steps for that purpose was a character called "Shanghai", he was supposed to have accrued a small fortune and the steps then acquired the name of "Shanghai's Golden Stairway".
William Bottrell lived at Hawke's Point in a tumble-down old cottage. After many hardships and heart aches, he had chosen to live out the remainder of his life as a recluse, collecting ancient Cornish customs and folk tales. The youngsters looked on him as "a gentle old man and always kind to the children who came to him for fruit and vegetables, for which his orchard and garden were famed".
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