Kenidjack Archives - Explore Cornwall

A Walk from Cape Cornwall to Botallack

Caitlin — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:06:23 +0000

This walk starts at the National Trust Cape Cornwall carpark. Head out onto the road and through the gate opposite, this will lead you across a field past St Helen’s Oratory; this is an early Christian chapel with its fourth century cross. Past the chapel, follow any of the paths up to the famous Cape Cornwall mine stack.

This stack is all that remains of the mine, erected in the 1850’s. In 1987 the Cape was bought by Heinz to celebrate their 100 year anniversary who later gave it to the National Trust. Retrace your steps back to the main road and head up to sign posted coastpath that winds it way down into the Kenidjack Valley below.

At the bottom of the valley is where you can find the remains of the Kenidjack stream works, take a right and you’ll soon come to an overgrown path up to the consolidated buildings. Many of these are now covered with copious amounts of brambles, but not enough that you can’t appreciate the beautiful arsenic works and mills.

Follow the path back and take a detour to the bottom of the valley to see the giant water wheel and engine house remains of Boswedden mine. The valley ends at Porthledden Cove with its wonderful smooth rocks.

Retrace your steps up the slope until you reach a footpath on the left-hand side. This steep path goes up to Kenidjack Head, which was once home to an ancient cliff castle with remains of ramparts and hut platforms still in place. More recent additions include Wheal Castle mine with its own shafts and engine house before it was amalgamated with Boswedden.
In 1908, the purser of West Wheal Owles mine had rifle ranges built on the site which can still be seen today. The store used on the range is the more prominent feature on the headland.

From the store, go north up the coastpath towards the engine houses in front of you. The first that you’ll reach is the Wheal Edward stamps house, followed by the Wheal Owles pumping engine.

Keep on the path to take in the beautiful sight that is the Crown’s engine house of Botallack mine.

On the way back, you can either follow the coastpath back to Cape Cornwall, or do as we did and take the path near Wheal Grouse multipurpose engine house. Head back to Wheal Owles engine house (you may recognise it from Poldark) and instead of following the path take a left up towards the Wheal Drea engine house. Once you’ve passed this and the pretty farmhouse next to it, take a right down the narrow country path that heads across a field.

At the end of this path climb over the stile and on the left you should be able to spot the Wheal Grouse engine house; while we were there it had some scaffolding around the back. To head back to the lane opposite the stile and follow this down into the Kenidjack valley. Eventually you’ll come to the path you took down from Cape Cornwall and can head back to the carpark.

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Boswedden Mine

Caitlin — Sun, 10 May 2020 10:47:05 +0000

Boswedden mine stretches up the north coast from Cape Cornwall to Wheal Edward Zawn and inland as far as Wheal Drea. Much like its neighbours Wheal Owles and Botallack, is an amalgamation of a number of smaller workings. These include Wheal Williams, Buzza, Wheal Praze, Yankee Boy, Great Trelewack/Porthledden, Little Trelewack, Great Weetg, South Weeth, Kenidjack Cliff, Wheal Castle and Wheal Zennor.

Work here started long before proper records began, with the first mentions being in Boscean section of the mine in 1508. Most of the work here at this time was tin streaming and stamping, utilising the steady flow of water through the Kenidjack valley for this. A stamping mill was built in 1537 with this very idea in mind. Work started at Wheal Zennor in 1782.

All that’s left of the Wheal Call pumping engine house. Its boiler house would have stood where the path is.

By 1822 work was underway at Wheal Castle, Wheal Call and Boswedden with a 65’ water wheel in place at the end of the valley. While engine houses were already well established in Cornwall by this point, the valley had such a ready supply for its ore dressing that they weren’t often needed.

Between 1836 and 1872 several smaller mines amalgamated under the name Boswedden and Wheal Castle. During this period an incline shaft was sunk, heading out under the sea, however they found the ground was very poor. By 1864 there were five engine houses on the mine, although some of them worked part time due to the quantity of water gained from the stream.

The famous wheel pit at the base of the valley.

In 1872 Boscean and Wheal Cunning sections were added and started work under the name Wheal Cunning United, but this venture was short lived. Two years later just Wheal Cunning was at work and many items from the mine were up for sale, before closing in 1876. Between 1883-6 some efforts were made at Wheal Castle, but little came of this. The Great Freeze of 1892 left several of the buildings in the valley destroyed, and what was left was used for demolition practice during WWII.

The remains of the 28″ stamps engine, consolidated by the National Trust after being demolished by military during WWII.

Throughout its life there were only five engine on the mine site, some of which worked part time. There was a 40″ pumping engine, 28″ stamps engine, 37″ (or 36″) pumping engine on Wheal Call and a small engine at Wheal Castle. I can’t fine anything on the fifth engine.
Boswedden is by far more famous for the ginormous water wheel housing at the base of the valley. In 1837 a 65′ wheel pit was erected, making it the largest in Cornwall. The one that remains today is not for the 65′, but more likely for the 30′ (enlarged to 52′ in 1865) wheel put up later on. This would have driven buddles and pumped from two shafts using flat rods.

The rusting remains of a engine used to pump water up to the house on the hill above.

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