It's a monument near the top of Gunnislake Hill - and we lived opposite it for a dozen years.
The inscription tells of the coronation of George V of course, but the rest of it is to do with the demise of the mining industry here in the valley and the coming of the railways.
The railway from Bere Alston on the Southern Line from Plymouth to London via Okehampton was connected up to a new single-working line to Callington via Gunnislake. The line was finished in 1911 and was the very last railway line built during the steam era. In order for the line to be built, they had to cross the main A390 road, and this entailed the altering of the gradient under the level of the line and the new bridge. This must have been a mammoth task.
Although the coming of the railway heralded new industries of flowers and soft fruit having fast transport to Covent Garden it was preceded by unemployment, misery and poverty. The mining boom had gone and the old mineral railway lines dug up and a spanking new standard gauge railway put in its place. Gradients were altered, curves too, and bridges had to be widened and strengthened.
The labour for all this was imported and with locals too, but there was much bad feeling that the old ways had gone - including all the old mineral lines.
50 odd years later, the Beeching Axe terminated the line at Gunnislake, and in the 1990s the bridge over the A390 was taken away after a new station was built on the south side of the road on the site of the old coal yard.
If anyone climbs Gunnislake Hill on their way to LE, pull off at the monument and give those old unemployed miners and poverty stricken families a little thought.
