The beautiful home of Porthledden is a classic tale of local boy made good — but Francis Oats didn’t get to enjoy it for long.
When young Cornishman Francis Oats left school in the early 1860s, he became a miner, as did many of his classmates in west Cornwall. Yet, with an eye on a bigger prize, he would walk the seven miles from his home in St Just across the fields to Penzance, in order to attend evening classes in mining engineering.
His efforts paid off, and…
