South Wheal Frances is a former

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

accessing the copper and tin of the

Great Flat Lode The Great Flat Lode is a mineral-bearing body of rock under the southern granite slopes of Carn Brea south of Camborne in west Cornwall, England, UK. Mining The Great Flat Lode lies under the southern granite slopes of Carn Brea and so named ...

south of

Camborne Camborne ( kw, Kammbronn) is a town in Cornwall, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 20,845. The northern edge of the parish includes a section of the South West Coast Path, Hell's Mouth and Deadman's Cove. Camborne was formerl ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England.

Mine

Mining began in the local area in the early 1720s. Mining for copper was first documented at the site in the 1820s. After Lady Frances Bassett, the mineral Lord, offered a new lease on the land in 1834 production resumed. Tin mining commenced in 1852. The mine complex is centred on Marriott's Shaft which had been sunk by 1845. It was at its most productive between 1844 and 1895. Altogether 67,866 tons of copper and 9,716 tons of tin ores were extracted. After the extent of the Great Flat Lode was discovered in 1872-74 a

winding engine A winding engine is a stationary engine used to control a cable, for example to power a mining hoist at a pit head. Electric hoist controllers have replaced proper winding engines in modern mining, but use electric motors that are also tradition ...

house was built at Pascoe's Shaft in 1879 and a pumping engine house housing an 80-inch cylinder was built in 1887. An engine house with a 75-inch cylinder pumping engine installed at Marriott's shaft in 1847 pumped water from Pascoe's shaft as well as Marriott's. In 1857 a 24-inch winder was installed in close proximity. An engine house housing a 30-inch cylinder engine for both pumping and winding was built at the Daubuz shaft between 1879 and 1881. The shaft was sunk when mining reached the Great Flat Lode and was named after a company shareholder. The mine was owned by South Frances United in 1892 and the company amalgamated with neighbouring Wheal Basset in 1895 becoming the Basset Mines. Between 1896 and 1899 a major refurbishment of the shaft was undertaken, enabling mining to take places as far down as 6,000 feet. By the early 20th century, several thousand men, women,

bal maiden A bal maiden, from the Cornish language , a mine, and the English "maiden", a young or unmarried woman, was a female manual labourer working in the mining industries of Cornwall and western Devon, at the south-western extremity of Great Britai ...

s, and children worked in the mine. A slump in tin prices during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

led to the mine's closure in 1918.

Remains

The site of the mine is marked by extensive remains around Marriott's and Pascoe's shafts. The surviving features include the derelict, roofless winding engine house to Marriott's shaft that was built in the 1890s. It is constructed of granite rubble with

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

and brick arches to the window openings. As are most remains on the site, it is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It contained a horizontal cross-compound engine made by Holman's of Camborne, with 23- and 43-inch cylinders either side of its conical winding drum. The derelict boiler house at Marriott's shaft is built of granite rubble with quoins at the corners and brick arch openings. Now roofless, it once contained six

Lancashire boiler A shell or flued boiler is an early and relatively simple form of boiler used to make steam, usually for the purpose of driving a steam engine. The design marked a transitional stage in boiler development, between the early haystack boilers and t ...

s to power a pumping engine, winder, compressor, crusher, and capstan.

References

Footnotes Bibliography * {{coord, 50.208 , -5.252, display=title, region:GB_type:landmark Mines in Cornwall