This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2024) |
Location | |
---|---|
Location | St Day |
County | Cornwall |
Country | United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 50°13′59″N5°08′28″W / 50.233065°N 5.141118°W |
Production | |
Products | Tin |
History | |
Opened | 1976 |
Closed | 1991 |
Mount Wellington Tin mine, two miles east of the village of St Day in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, opened in 1976 and was the first new mine in the region in many years. [1]
With the fall of tin prices and the withdrawal of pumping subsidies, the mine finally closed in 1991. An attempt to revive the mine occurred when an individual tried to transform it into a visitor attraction, but his endeavour failed.
The site was bought by Mount Wellington Mine Ltd in early 2007, who removed the remaining headgear stump, and have proceeded to renovate the site and turned it into a private, gated, business park. There are a number of tenants who operate exclusively in the renewable energy sector including Kensa Heat Pumps.
During the 1920s, three brothers called Wellington worked the old Wheal Andrew lodes close to surface.
The brothers were mining in a small way, working with primitive plant and operations, taking ore to a Cornish stamps down the valley to be treated for its tin content. Captain Josiah Paull, of the Mines and Metallurgical Club in London, reported that the ore the Wellingtons were breaking was yielding an average of 30 lb. of black tin per ton. The workings around the shaft they were working were crushed at a later date, putting the shaft out of action, and “being only ordinary Cornish miners”, the Wellingtons did not have the money to either open up the adit or put down another shaft.
In 1935 Mount Wellington Ltd, backed by the British Non-ferrous Mining Corp Ltd, acquired the rights on United and Consolidated Mines, Wheal Clifford and Wheal Andrew. On 5 February shares in Mount Wellington Mine Ltd were advertised for sale.
During the 1930s further shafts and mining buildings were built at Mount Wellington the mine acquired mining rights to the adjacent mines. However, by the end of the decade, milling was being suspended due to low tin prices, and it faced difficulties extracting the ore at sufficient quantities to show a profit.
On 16 December 1939 work stopped at Mount Wellington Mine due to lack of finance.
In 1963 International Mine Services Ltd of Toronto became interested in the mineral potential of Cornwall. By 1967 exploratory drilling began at Mount Wellington Mine and by 1969 a contract to sink No.1 Wellington Shaft and erect buildings was awarded to Thyssen (Great Britain Ltd) by Cornwall Tin & Mining Ltd.
In 1974 Mount Wellington mine, controlled by the Cornwall Tin and Mining Corporation, and situated a few miles to the west of Truro on the opposite side of the Bissoe Valley, to the neighbouring Wheal Jane mine, was to go ahead with the proposed tin mining operation. It was the third new tin mine in Cornwall in three years.
The erection of the concentrating plant commenced in preparation for receiving its first ore from underground in January 1976. The operation will cost initially some £4-25 million to finance and qualified for a 20% grant from the U.K. Government.
The initial throughput was forecast to be 0'2 million tonnes/annum in an all-gravity plant to provide about 1,600 tonnes of tin metal and some copper, zinc and silver. The shaft was to be deepened from 210m to 310m. The mine was planned to have a life of some 25 years, and the workforce planned was up to 300.
However, on 20 April 1978 Mount Wellington Mine closed. No more ore ever came up Wellington's No.1 shaft after this date. No.1 shaft was retained for man and machinery access. The Wellington site was sold by the Administrators of Cornwall Tin & Mining Ltd to a Falmouth-based scrap dealer.
In August 1979 Carnon Consolidated, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc, acquired Wheal Jane from Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd. RTZ used Thyssens to redevelop Wheal Jane and used William Press to renovate Wheal Jane's mill. Carnon also bought the freehold of Wellington's No.1 shaft area, together with Wellington's Engineering Building from the scrap dealer. £10m was allocated to renovate both mines.
Also in 1979, Billiton Minerals (UK) Ltd, a Shell subsidiary, bought Hydraulic Tin of Bissoe, who worked alluvial tin and mine waste tailings. Billiton bought the rest of the land and buildings, including the Mill at Mount Wellington Mine. They also bought the Wheal Maid valley and the tailings dam and lagoon. Wellington's offices, and some land for storage of plant, were leased from Billiton by Thyssens. Thyssens used Wellington as a base for their work at Wheal Jane, South Crofty and Geevor mine.
In June 1980 production at Jane recommenced, some ore coming from Mount Wellington. The following year, a new 7” MDPE pipeline was laid between Wellington and the Tailings Dam at Wheal Maid. Old mine waste was sluffified and pumped into Wellington's Mill, where it was re-processed to obtain minerals.
In 1982 Carnon Consolidated (RTZ) purchased Billiton's freehold interest in the Mount Wellington, Wheal Maid and Hydraulic Tin sites.
By 1984 100% of South Crofty had been purchased by Carnon Consolidated, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc, and the three mines of Crofty, Mount Wellington and Wheal Jane operated as one unit.
Production at Wheal Jane had already restarted in 1980 reaching 1499 tonnes of tin in 1981 and 1863 tonnes in 1984. The Wheal Maid Decline was started, on land originally owned by Mount Wellington Mine. 1984 operations produced an estimated 35,000 tons of ore. The length of the Decline is 655 meters, and reached over towards Cornwall County Council's waste dump at United Downs. The Decline suffered from ingress of Methane gas from the dump, which gave rise to safety concerns over possible underground fires or explosion.
In March 1991 Wheal Jane, incorporating Mount Wellington Mine, the Wheal Maid Decline and the Wheal Maid Tailings Lagoons, were finally closed for the last time.
On 16 January 1992 the UK's most infamous mine water outburst disaster occurred when 320 million litres of untreated acidic mine water and sludge burst from the Nangiles adit at the Wheal Jane Mine site in Cornwall into the Carnon River. This resulted in a major pollution plume that discoloured the estuary and deposited high concentrations of Cd and Zn. Cadmium levels reached 600 mg 1-1, relative to UK water quality standards of 1 mg 1–1
In 1998 Mount Wellington Mine was bought by David Shrigley of DRS Demolition from South Crofty PLC. DRS submitted multiple planning applications for change of use for the Mount Wellington Mine site, however all were rejected.
Carrick District Council gave planning consent for retention of the Mount Wellington Mine buildings in 2003.
By 15 April 2004, Carrick District Council was reviewing the future of Mount Wellington Mine at Twelveheads, Bissoe. Councillors discussed what could be done with the former mine so future possible developers could have a clear idea of its potential.
In his report to the committee, Carrick's head of development, Karl Roberts, said the site was clearly unsuitable for a residential development. The committee's comments and the report's findings were to be looked at by Carrick's full cabinet. Mount Wellington Mine had not operated for more than 10 years, and at one point, looked set to be turned into a nature reserve.
In 2005 the top of headgear at Mount Wellington were demolished.
On 15 January 2007 Mount Wellington Mine was purchased by Richard Freeborn of Mount Wellington Mine Ltd. Mount Wellington Mine was officially re-opened by Tim Smit from The Eden Project on 22 January.
On 30 May 2012 a celebration was held to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the move of Kensa Heat Pumps to the Mount Wellington Mine site as its first tenant. The gathering included – for the first time in some decades - the combined Management Teams of all four modern Cornish tin mines – Geevor, South Crofty, Wheal Jane and Mount Wellington Mine.
In 2013, international offshore engineering company Geoquip bought the assets of Ocean Fabrications and took over the leases on the site. The old offices in The Dry were renovated, and substantial new investment was placed in the Mill Building and its associated plant yard.
On St Piran's day, Saturday 5 March 2016, the Cornish Radio Amateur Club (CRAC) made a special one-time-only broadcast at Mount Wellington Mine. The club obtained a Special Events Station Licence to activate the use of the Cornish Mine as an amateur radio station.
Also in 2016 Eagle Plant opened an accommodation hire business on the site followed in February 2017 by a Plant Hire operation.
In 2017, new tenants Metal Surgery and Building With Frames replaced Geoquip in the Mill and Concentrator buildings respectively.
In February 2020 a new specialist manufacturing facility, with offices above was built at Mount Wellington Mine, designed to meet the specific needs of Kensa Heat Pumps. This is the first new building at Mount Wellington Mine since the 1970s.
From Robert Hunt's Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom [3] .
Year(s) | Total | Overground | Underground |
---|---|---|---|
1935 | 95 | 37 | 58 |
1936 | 68 | 48 | 20 |
1937 | 133 | 86 | 47 |
1938 | 70 | 42 | 28 |
1940 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
1942 | 22 | 22 | .. |
1943 | 98 | 78 | 20 |
Geevor Tin Mine, formerly North Levant Mine is a tin mine in the far west of Cornwall, England, between the villages of Pendeen and Trewellard. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history of a working tin mine. The museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. Since 2006, the mine has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
Poldice mine is a former metalliferous mine located in Poldice Valley in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated near the hamlet of Todpool, between the villages of Twelveheads and St Day, three miles (5 km) east of Redruth. Since the early 2000’s the area has been adopted by the local mountain biking community known as the Dice Rollers. The area is now nationally famous as the best location to ride MTB in the south west attracting attention from youtube superstars such as Ben Deakin and his friend Matt Edgie. This is a popular location for mountain bicycling
Levant Mine and Beam Engine is a National Trust property at Trewellard, Pendeen, near St Just, Cornwall, England, UK. Its main attraction is that it has the world's only Cornish beam engine still operated by steam on its original site. There is also a visitor centre, a short underground tour, and the South West Coast Path leads to Botallack Mine, via a cliff-top footpath.
Mining in Cornwall and Devon, in the southwest of Britain, is thought to have begun in the early-middle Bronze Age with the exploitation of cassiterite. Tin, and later copper, were the most commonly extracted metals. Some tin mining continued long after the mining of other metals had become unprofitable, but ended in the late 20th century. In 2021, it was announced that a new mine was extracting battery-grade lithium carbonate, more than 20 years after the closure of the last South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall in 1998.
Gwennap is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about five miles (8 km) southeast of Redruth. Hamlets of Burncoose, Comford, Coombe, Crofthandy, Cusgarne, Fernsplatt, Frogpool, Hick's Mill, Tresamble and United Downs lie in the parish, as does Little Beside country house.
Wheal Jane is a disused tin mine near Baldhu and Chacewater in West Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The area itself consisted of a large number of mines.
Dolcoath mine was a copper and tin mine in Camborne, Cornwall, United Kingdom. Its name derives from the Cornish for 'Old Ground', and it was also affectionately known as The Queen of Cornish Mines. The site is north-west of Carn Brea. Dolcoath Road runs between the A3047 road and Chapel Hill. The site is south of this road.
South Crofty is a metalliferous tin and copper mine located in the village of Pool, Cornwall, England. An ancient mine, it has seen production for over 400 years, and extends almost two and a half miles across and 3,000 feet (910 m) down and has mined over 40 lodes. Evidence of mining activity in South Crofty has been dated back to 1592, with full-scale mining beginning in the mid-17th century. The mine went into serious decline after 1985 and eventually closed in 1998. After several changes of ownership, South Crofty is owned by Cornish Metals Inc, which is working to re-open the mine, as of November 2022, having received a permit for dewatering the mine.
The Great County Adit, sometimes called the County Adit, or the Great Adit was a system of interconnected adits that helped drain water from the tin and copper mines in the Gwennap area of Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. Construction started in 1748 and it eventually reached a length of over 40 miles (64 km) of a tunnel, providing drainage to over 100 mines at an average depth of 80–100 metres (260–330 ft).
Wheal Peevor was a metalliferous mine located on North Downs about 1.5 miles north-east of Redruth, Cornwall, England. The first mining sett was granted here in around 1701 on land owned by the St Aubyn family. It was originally mined at shallow depths for copper, but when the price for that metal slumped after 1788, the mine was able to change to mining tin ore, which was found deeper down. In the late 18th century Wheal Peevor had the advantage of being drained by the Great County Adit which was around 100 metres deep here. The mine covered only 12 acres but had rich tin lodes. In addition to tin and copper, pyrite was also mined here between 1872 and 1887.
Wheal Vor was a metalliferous mine about 2 miles (3.2 km) north west of Helston and 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village of Breage in the west of Cornwall, England, UK. It is considered to be part of the Mount's Bay mining district. Until the mid-19th century the mine was known for its willingness to try out new innovations. Although very rich in copper and tin ores, the mine never lived up to its expectations. During the later part of the 19th century it had several periods of closure, with an attempt to reopen it in the 1960s which was not successful mainly because of bureaucracy. Today the site is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape.
Wheal Busy, sometimes called Great Wheal Busy and in its early years known as Chacewater Mine, was a metalliferous mine halfway between Redruth and Truro in the Gwennap mining area of Cornwall, England. During the 18th century the mine produced enormous amounts of copper ore and was very wealthy, but from the later 19th century onwards was not profitable. Today the site of the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
East Pool mine, was a metalliferous mine in the Camborne and Redruth mining area, just east of the village of Pool in Cornwall. Worked from the early 18th century until 1945, first for copper and later tin, it was very profitable for much of its life. Today the site has two preserved beam engines and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. It is owned by the National Trust.
Consolidated Mines, also known as Great Consolidated mine, but most commonly called Consols or Great Consols was a metalliferous mine about a mile ESE of the village of St Day, Cornwall, England. Mainly active during the first half of the 19th century, its mining sett was about 600 yards north–south; and 2,700 yards east–west, to the east of Carharrack. Although always much troubled by underground water, the mine was at times highly profitable, and it was the largest single producer of copper ore in Cornwall. Today the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.
Wheal Coates is a former tin mine situated on the north coast of Cornwall, UK, on the cliff tops between Porthtowan and St Agnes. It is preserved and maintained by the National Trust.
Phoenix United Mine is a disused 19th century copper and tin mine in Cornwall, England, UK. Heavy metals left over in the soil from the mining operations have allowed mosses and lichens to flourish, and today the site is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), noted for its biological characteristics.
Wheal Metal is a tin-mining sett in west Cornwall, England, UK. Whilst not as famous as neighbouring Wheal Vor, it was thus described by the Mining Journal in July 1885: " Truly this is a wonderful mine—probably the richest tin mine in the world." It also hosts a very remarkable engine house of the mid-19th century that once stood over Trelawney's shaft on Wheal Vor, and since the Wheal Vor area itself has no visible remains, this is the only large surviving engine house of this group of mines which accounted for over a quarter of Cornish tin production in the mid-19th century.
Basset Mines was a mining company formed in Cornwall, England, by the amalgamation of six copper and tin mining setts. It operated from 1896 until 1918, when it was closed due to a fall in the price of tin.
The Carnon River is a heavily polluted river in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It starts in Chacewater. Both Trewedna Water and River Kennall flow into the Carnon before it merges with Tallack's Creek to become Restronguet Creek, which eventually flows into the English Channel at the mouth of Carrick Roads.
Wheal Maid is a former mine in the Camborne-Redruth-St Day Mining District, 1.5 km east of St Day.