East Wheal Rose was a metalliferous mine around south east of the village of St Newlyn East and is around from

Newquay Newquay ( ; kw, Tewynblustri) is a town on the north coast in Cornwall, in the south west of England. It is a civil parish, seaside resort, regional centre for aerospace industries, spaceport and a fishing port on the North Atlantic coast of ...

on the north Cornwall coast, United Kingdom. The country rock at the mine was

killas Killas is a Cornish language, Cornish mining term for metamorphic rock stratum, strata of sedimentary origin which were altered by heat from the intruded granites in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall. The term is used in both counties. ...

and its main produce was lead ore ( galena), but as is usual when mining this mineral, commercial quantities of silver and zinc were also found and sold. Lead was found in the area in 1812 and in 1834 the mine was established, by 1846 the mine employed over 1,200 men, women and children. The two main

lode In geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fissure (or crack) in a rock formation or a vein of ore that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock. The current meaning (ore vein) dates from the 1 ...

s, called Middleton's Lode and East Lode, trended north-south. The ore they contained was in places very soft and loose and the killas was also not a particularly strong rock, necessitating extensive underground timbering, particularly in the

shafts ''Shafts'' was an English feminist magazine produced by Margaret Sibthorp from 1892 until 1899. Initially published weekly and priced at one penny, its themes included votes for women, women's education, and radical attitudes towards vivisection, ...

. Records show that the mine had more than twenty shafts on the two lodes, and the deepest workings were at 150 fathoms (900 ft).

Disaster in 1846

The mine was sited in the valley of a small stream at the point where it opens out into a natural bowl and is virtually surrounded by hills. The outlet from this bowl is through a narrow ravine through which the stream flows into the

River Gannel The River Gannel ( kw, Dowr Gwyles, meaning '' lovage river'') rises in the village of Indian Queens in mid Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It flows north under Trevemper Bridge and becomes a tidal estuary, the Gannel ( kw, An Ganel, meaning ...

. Just after noon on 9 July 1846 there was an unusually heavy thunderstorm which lasted an hour and a quarter. Captain Middleton, the mine manager, reported that within five minutes of it starting to rain, water was flowing down the hills in torrents. Despite efforts by the men on the surface to dam or divert the water from the shafts the mine was rapidly flooded up to the 50 fathom (300 ft) level, and of the estimated 200 miners who were underground at the time, 39 were drowned.

Later history

Despite the setback the mine soon reopened and continued producing ore until it closed in 1886. A 90-inch engine, supplied by Messrs Harvey and company of

Hayle Hayle ( kw, Heyl, "estuary") is a port town and civil parish in west Cornwall, England. It is situated at the mouth of the Hayle River (which discharges into St Ives Bay) and is approximately seven miles (11 km) northeast of Penzance. ...

, came into operation on 3 June 1882 and when the of main adit level was cleared, several lodes were discovered and the Middleton's lode was longer than previously thought. The engine was christened ″Inne's Engine″ by Lady Innes. Between 1845 and 1885 it produced 48,200 tons of 62% lead ore, 212,700 ounces of silver and 280 tons of zinc ore. Today, apart from the preserved engine house and chimney stack (which stands at 120ft high), there are few remains of the mine visible. The site is a tourist attraction with a boating lake, crazy golf etc. It is at one end of the

Lappa Valley Steam Railway The Lappa Valley Railway is a minimum gauge railway located near Newquay in Cornwall. The railway functions as a tourist attraction, running from Benny Halt () to East Wheal Rose (), where there is a leisure area with two miniature railways. ...

which follows part of the route of one of the

Treffry Tramways The Treffry Tramways were a group of mineral tramways in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, constructed by Joseph Treffry (1782-1850), a local land owner and entrepreneur. They were constructed to give transport facilities to several mines and pits ...

that was opened in 1849 for hauling ore from the mine to Newquay.

References

{{Cornwall Mines in Cornwall Lead mines in England Mining disasters in England Disasters in Cornwall 1846 in England 1846 disasters in the United Kingdom 1846 mining disasters