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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Wheal Owles

Caitlin — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 09:51:51 +0000

Wheal Owles is a mine sat on the cliff path just south of its more famous neighbour Botallack. This particular mine is a rarity in that four engine houses and parts of several others can still be seen today.

Some sections of this mine were already at work by 1725, although they were all separate ventures at this point. In 1810 the first engine was erected, possibly the 22” Boulton and Watt or the 15” whim.

West Wheal Owles 36″ pumping engine, famous for being the Wheal Leisure engine in Poldark.

It wasn’t until the 1860’s when several of the smaller ventures were added into one sett that Wheal Owles began to produce large quantities of ore. During this period there were eleven engines, twenty nine miles of tunnels with at least another mile being added each year. Over the next two decades even more small mines were added, and in 1870 Cargodna was renamed West Wheal Owles.

The walled Cargodna shaft where ten people perished in 1893.

The next two decades saw the fortunes of the mine take a real downturn. In 1874 a drop in ore prices led to Wheal Owles, Wheal Boys and Wheal Grouse shutting down and only three engines were left running. Tin prices continued to plummet and more inland sectioned closed, with efforts focused on the West Wheal Owles area. Only the 36” engine on West Wheal Owles was left working in 1884.

The consolidated ruins of the 28″ Wheal Edward stamps with Scott for scale.

In 1893, men was sent to the 65 fathom level of Cargodna shaft to break into what was thought to be richer ground towards Wheal Drea. However, the plans were incorrect and the men broke into the 148 fathoms level of Wheal Drea, releasing all of the backed up water and flooding the workings. The pressure was so great it supposedly blew a crater down near the Kenidjack almhouse. Nineteen men and one boy drowned. The mine was never drained again.

The smaller workings that make up Wheal Owles include: Wheal Edward, Wheal Drea, Wheal Grouse, Cargodna, Wheal Boys, Wheal Gendall, Wheal Chase and Lower Boscean.

The last bits of Cargodna’s 24″ whim.

Lodes

Shafts

Lodes

Shafts

Different views of the Wheal Owles 30″ pumping engine and what’s left of its chimney.

Engine Houses

Wheal Owles – 1810, 22″ Boulton & Watt pumping engine
Wheal Owles – >1825, 15″ whim
Wheal Owles – 30″ pumping engine
West Wheal Owles – 1857, 36″ pumping engine on Cargodna shaft
Wheal Drea – 1857, 26″ pumping and winding engine
Wheal Edward – 1870, 28″ multifunction whim and stamps with 16 heads
Wheal Edward – 1882, 24″ whim on Cargodna shaft

Wheal Edward – 1882 – multifunction engine, hoisting drum removed and 16 more stamps added
Wheal Grouse – 30″ stamps engine
Wheal Grouse – 40″ pumping engine
Wheal Boys – pumping engine
Parknoweth – 23″ pumping engine
Parknoweth – 20″ whim engine
Chycornish – engine house

The 26″ multipurpose engine at Wheal Drea that was used to pump from Wheal Drea shaft and wind from Greenland.

Output

Wheal Edward: 1821-56 2 tons (2,032kg) of black sin and 955 tons (970,325kg) 9% copper. 1859 874 tons (888,025kg) copper.
Wheal Owles: 1837-9, 1841, 1853-93 8,540 tons (8,677,041kg) tin and 340 tons (345,456kg) 7% copper. 1878-9 5 cwt (254kg) uranium and some bismuth. 50 tons (50,802kg) arsenic.
Parknoweth: 1837-41 42 tons (42,674kg) tin.

More images from the Wheal Drea section of the mine.

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A Walk from Cape Cornwall to Botallack

Wheal Owles

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