London Apprentice is a village in south Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It is situated in the St Austell River

St Austell River

The St Austell River properly known as the River Vinnick, but historically called The White River, is a long river located in south Cornwall, United Kingdom....

 valley approximately two miles (3 km) south of St Austell

St Austell

St Austell is a civil parish and a major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on the south coast approximately ten miles south of Bodmin and 30 miles west of the border with Devon at Saltash...

.

The village is in the civil parish

Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 of Pentewan Valley and the ecclesiastical parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 of St Austell and it takes its name from the London Apprentice Inn, which formerly stood on the St Austell to Pentewan

Pentewan

Pentewan is a coastal village and former port in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated at three miles south of St Austell at the mouth of the St Austell River....

 road. The inn traded from 1815 to 1871 and probably longer.

Tin-mining

In 1833 a coalyard was constructed on the Pentewan Railway

Pentewan Railway

The Pentewan Railway was a British narrow gauge railway in Cornwall. It was built as a horse-drawn tramway carrying china clay from St Austell to the harbour at Pentewan. In 1874 the line was rebuilt by engineer John Barraclough Fell and converted to locomotive working, at which time the gauge was...

 near the inn to supply coal to the tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

 mines at nearby Polgooth

Polgooth

Polgooth is a former mining village in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. It lies mainly in the parish of St Mewan and partly in the parish of St Ewe...

 and the settlement may have arisen around this point. According to nineteenth-century census returns, most of the villagers were engaged in tin-mining, either in the stream-works of Wheal Virgin, close to London Apprentice, or in Polgooth. The former closed in 1874, the latter by 1900. The New Mills Primitive Methodist Church was built in the village in 1870, but closed in 1988, though the building still stands..

The village today

Today, the village (which retains a shop and a restaurant) caters mainly for tourists. The old railway line to Pentewan is now a footpath and cycle path. Kings Wood, a remnant of ancient woodland owned by the Woodland Trust

Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom concerned with the protection and sympathetic management of native woodland heritage.-History:...

, lies to the south of the village.