old technology such as water power but utilised with modern materials are not a bad bet right now

plenty of the water around at present, which is certainly not helping our tourism "industry"

On a separate note I belive a lot of the rock from Concord went into what was known locally as the the Navvy pit, what had been an extremely rich open cast copper mine between Porthtowan and Mount Hawke and part of Wheal Music, I can find Music East and Music in Penwith but not this site.

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The GRs for the Navvy Pit are SW 7038 4703.

Edit.
Actually I should have looked, it's already in the DB.

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The photo below is concord in 1981.
Wh.Concord and Wh.Briton were both reopened in 1810. Briton having been idle since 1791. Concord is reported to have been at work under steam power in the 1820's. Some prospecting was done in this area in the 1920's but more to do with the lodes west of the concord site, so the area has been in the backs of peoples minds as a possible prospect for over a century.
Work was started on opening the present mine in the second week of June 1980 headed by Nick Warrel (Mining Engineer)and Jack Symons (project manager). Due to the complex geology in this area - Faults and heaves all over the place - a surface drilling programme was ruled out, and the decision made to clear the shaft to have a 'look see'. A pretty bold move I thought at the time. Most of the gamble was based on reports compiled from old documents by the inimitable Jack Trounson. A lode in North Wheal Busy is reported to have been dipping steeply into the Concord sett, and at one time had a reported head grade of 120lbs/ton. The geology has been likened to that of the St.Agnes district around the Polberro and West Kitty area.
The adit was found at 27 Fathoms from surface and the deepest the mine attained in this new project was a little over 60 fathoms from surface.
Apparently 6 lode structures were discovered within a distance of 240 metres South of the main shaft. The best of these, and from where the most of the ore was extracted, was Chynoweth Lode, with removable values over a 1.7 metre width. Values here ranged up to 15% Sn and a lode to the south -undeveloped- consistently sampled 7%. Average grade at the mill was 1.4 to 1.7%. Not bad for 'Knacked Bal'! values in the old stopes were running at 1.5%
I reckon there is still room for a small mine in that area. A south crosscut would intersect the North Busy lode and with six lodes to the west and a few more to the east, I'm not surprised that there maybe renewed interest in the sett.
Another prospect is Droskyn and Wheal Ramoth (Perranporth)
check out the full report in the white paper section on this site. I would buy shares in it. :thumbsup:

🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-082[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-082[/linkphoto][/link]

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I got distracted from my walkings around the top end of Tywarnhayle by a nice bearded fellow who told me he was something to do with mineral tramways back in the first days.....He was ex Jane/Crofty/Geevor staff and quite interesting. I say this as one of you lot probably know him.

Edit:- I didn't catch his name as some exuberant milf came and disturbed our conversation.




He mentioned that he was trying to get the headgear at Concord relocated somewhere a while ago, but another body of people (now defunct) got first dibs.

It got me wondering how the area would change and be completely unrecognisable as a mine if the headgear went. I wondered what other things are hiding around. Eg Wheal Briton.

I suppose the burning question has to be "Can you still get along Phillips Adit" or has the county adit backed up there?

I was going to have a look down the shaft but was ill equipped first time and the second time there was a big fence around it. Getting in Phillips Adit would be very interesting, as it would be the entrance to an enormous and mostly inaccessible maze.

News on Concord

Wheal concord has not been let and is owned now by the crown,

They are talking about removing the headgear fromt he site which will totally ruin the image of the site and that there was a mine there at all,

Im trying to see if there is any intrest at all about this site and if anyone knows anything about the old mining.

Please contact me about wheal concorde i have full access for many years to come and a true cornish man who wishes to restore the head gear and leave if there

We popped by there the other day and had a chat to the chap occupying the site. Nice bloke.

I gather that if a company winds up, the Duchy have first dibbs on it, within 30 years of it being de-registered. So, if one was occupying the site and wished to apply to register it, inside the 30 years, even if you were well into your 12 years, they could say "this is ours" and that's the end of it.

The royals are more equal that the rest of us (don't get my started about the parasitic nature of the Duchy on Cornwall). Kill the bastards, I say.

I wonder if the headgear has been the subject of restoration with regards to the King Edward Mine lot. They're a good museum and have a winding engine which points at a shaft which would look good with that headgear restored on it.

I wouldn't like to be the person who tries to move it. I reckon it will fall apart.

We had a look and noted that the water is well above adit and really, there isn't much to look at really.

If you're interested in it that much, you need the Concord Book, which is a good read.

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3821276732&searchurl=bt.x%3D0%26bt.y%3D0%26kn%3Dwheal%2Bconcord%26sts%3Dt 

Cheers, Stu

Well now that the person has been removed from the concord site and we now rent the site from Duchy, its about time someone help someone like me restore the former headgear.

Thanks for you info

fascinating picture.

I visited Concord in 1980 or 1981 ... Foraky had a cactus grab on hire at Pendarves and a few other odd bits of plant ( mainly drilling gear ) hired out, I had a few days down there driving around in a van collecting small items, dropping off several sets of seals for the grab, some odds and ends.

A contemporary of mine from CSM called Edgar Trestrail was working there and he took me down.

Foraky closed the mining dept as part of their MBO in 1983 and I was made redundant. Most of the hired plant was simply abandoned as not worth the cost of recovery.

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I'd be happy to help in any way I could. I'd love to see the headgear stay in it's historic place. It's a damn shame that those idiots who last had the site decided to cut the cage loose and let it drop down the shaft, it was certainly a rarity to see a headgear with it's cage still beneath it!

Moving it to King Edward mine would be nice in theory, but the modifications and changes required to do so would probably result in the headgear more or less ending up butchered and changed beyond the point of it being the same any more.

I'd prefer it to be in it's current location mostly due to the site layout being pretty much unchanged. The rails are still onsite, albeit slightly buried under dirt, but very easily recovered. It's a nice little example of a small mine layout.

hi any help to restore it would be appreciated and alsowe can raise the cage up if its still there we have plans to go down the mine soon

we have full keys to the place and agreements in place to restore the site but we need help not money just help

we think we can get a heritage grant to restore it as well

please contact me on [email protected]

I'm only up the road from the site and can easily get there if you guys decide to start work on restoring the site. I'd gladly lend a hand. I'm sure some others on here would too.

After what unfourtunately happened to the headframe at Mt Wellington it seems like a nice opportunity to save one of the other few headframes remaining in Cornwall.

Great

we only got the keys there last week now the guy who been on the site for the last 12yrs has been evicted off after a long legal battle so im told.

The first thing were going to do it put a flag on the head gear (St Pirans), the guy who owns the head gear is hopefully willing to sell it to me as king edward mine say its not cost effective,

i need to find someone who worked on the mine site so i can find out where the water pipe came in,

we are planning a decent shortly into the mine to see how much junk has been thrown down there and also if we can get the cage back,

we will be storing firewood there and running out firewood buisness from there, but also restoring the site back to at least a proud piece of cornwall history.

I need help on any info on the site and also any heritage grants avaliable for restoring it (headgear)

How many pics do you have of the site please at some point call me jason 07809640839

I just uploaded a few of my old photos of the site from 2007 and 2005.

You'll find that there isn't much to see down the shaft due to the high water level. There was a long discussion on this site a while back as to the reason for this high water level.

There won't be a huge amount of junk down the shaft due to the cage having blocked the shaft until it was cut a couple of years ago. I'm sure there is still a substantial amount of rubbish that will need to be removed, but the access and ability to do so will highly depend on what your plan is regarding removing it. You'll essentially need to construct a mini headframe/pulley set up within the existing headframe in order to hoist a small kibble up and down the shaft to remove the backpile of rubbish as well as lifting the cage back out (depending how jammed it is and how far below water level it stopped).

You'll probably end up needing to pump out some of the water in the shaft to gain access any further. A lengthy research into the adit system will help you work out where the probable chokage in the drainage system is. If you can get a natural drainage down to adit level then you'll have an easier time with your project.

think you will find that the mine uses the county adit for drainage so the blockage could be anywhere! and as for pumping out some of the water you would need a discarge licence from the e.a you dont want to go there

I have been told more than once, that Wheal Concord had its origins in the adit clearance programme run by various parties in the 1960s.

Foraky did a lot of work on this, including clearance in the County Adit and the various systems around South Crofty. When I was involved with their mining side there were various 'old sweats' around who had been involved in this.

It had the secondary effect of lowering the levels in a number of former operations and prospects

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Wheal Concord adit (Phillips adit) is about 80m at the shaft (39F) and was blocked when Concord started operations. There is some uncertainty about which way it goes, but it's blocked.

As there hasn't been any proper rain for ages, we wondered if it would be dry and as the cage had gone, whether we could rope down the skiproad (the ladderway isn't very nice). We reckoned the water was about 40m down, which is still way above adit. There are no levels off above water, although there are some workings above water in the area which were surveyed by Concord in the 80s.

If you did decide to clear and go down the ladderway, be very very careful of the air down there. With all that wood and metal and no ventilation, it's probably pretty horrible.

The cage will be underwater and irretrievable as it was only held up by a rusting girder.

Good luck with it. S



NB:- Relevant reading.

Great County adit - Buckley
Cornwall's future mines - Trounson.

Yes thinkign of the skidway, no water at the moment down there ropped down with a weight and no water at 60m

would like a buddy to go down there with me ?????

so far found the old tramway, a few other bits and pieces, someone said there was a separate access way

Also where the hell do i start about getting the headgear restored and finding some funding

If that's the case, I'm up for having a go at it. Send me a PM. Evenings are good. I've got a fair bit of gear, inc a davy lamp, which would probably be a good idea.

Also, whilst you are at it, have a look at the shaft which is equidistant from the track, the other side.

The adit is at about -78meters, which is a fair bit. I also gather there are no workings above that level in the immediate area (which you can get to from that shaft). We were there about 2 months ago and the water/shyte was about 120ft. If you look at the side of the shaft with the pipes, it's a ladderway. However, for god's sake, don't trust the ladders!!!!! (speaks he with the had-a-ladder-go-on-me horror).

Even if it doesn't go, it would be interesting.

pm sent

email replied.