Carclew, Cornwallâs finest Palladian mansion, was built by William Lemon (1696-1760), a mining entrepreneur whose genius dramatically accelerated the Industrial Revolution in Cornwall and tin and copper mining around the world.

From humble beginnings in West Cornwall, Lemon built a significant copper and tin mining empire, acting as a mining adventurer extracting ore, providing mining services to other mines, and smelting and trading in ore. He encouraged the introduction of steam engines to Cornish mining and cemented his fortune when he acquired a thirty-year licence to the copper mining rights of the Duchy of Cornwall.

Source: Lives of the Engineers. The Steam – Engine. Boulton and Watt. by Samuel Smiles, London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1878
Highly successful in promoting copper mining in Cornwall and around the world, although now largely forgotten, Lemon ranks with the likes of Josiah Wedgwood as one of the great entrepreneurs of the Industrial Revolution. He and his descendants used the wealth generated from their investments to support culture, education and wider philanthropic causes in Cornwall, developing Carclew during the 18th and 19th centuries, as an epicentre of politics, commerce, philanthropy and cultural life in Cornwall.

Carclewâs importance as an evocative survivor of the great Cornish mining era and Industrial Revolution is recognised in its listing by Historic England and its designation by the Cornwall Mining World Heritage Site. It is one of the last surviving places where social, cultural, educational and economic impacts of the Cornish mining boom can be experienced and comprehensively understood.
