I've added this to the database today http://www.aditnow.co.uk/mines/Wheal-Jane-Tin-Mine/  but I'm a little confused as to whether it's a duplicate of any of the other 'Jane's?

Grid refs:

Wheal Jane: SW 775 426
Jane North: SW 789 439
Jane West: SW 777 427
Jane (Old): SW 783 434

I suspect that Jane (Old) is the one that is considered to be Wheal Jane?

This beastie appears to have been pictured in Wheal Jane:

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As a slight aside, I was talking to someone yesterday who hails from those parts and he is busy excavating his garden to build a garage and apparently is dumping the soil down a shaft at Wheal Jane - does this make any sense to anyone, or has he been on the cider? 😉

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My understanding is that W Jane is Recent Jane, and Wheal Jane is the copper workings. I have a funny feeling that the Tremayne bit is Old Wheal Jane and the deeper shafts in the woods (with the generator house) are Wheal Jane itself. (Due to the oldish bit calling the older bit Old Wheal Jane, when in fact they both are!!! ) From what I can tell from HJ's 6" maps

I expect he's chucking earth down tremayne shaft (access) as that's the one which is the easiest to find and is uncapped/grilled. It's like a massive bin. Tell him to chuck **** down falmouth shaft. That's down the track towards the old genny building on the right. Straight to water.

Bloody tosser, tell him to stop it.

I believe he is dumping spoil there as it is where the Council have decreed to be an official dump!

Does this make any sense to anyone?!

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I would imagine Wheal Jane SW 775426 is the one you want. That's some machine!!!! If it's any interest a brief recent history.

The mineral lodes of the Baldhu area, formerly worked by about a dozen mines which combined in 1906 under the name of Falmouth Consolidated, came under the control of Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd in 1964. Exploratory drilling began in 1966 and shaft rehabilitation and underground ex¬ploration followed in 1968. In 1969 a decision was taken to bring the mine, to be known as Wheal Jane, into production in 1971. The mine produced four main metals, Sn, Cu, Sn and Ag. Annual production of tin peaked in 1973 at 1600 tonnes, but steadily declined to 951 tonnes in 1977 before closure in 1978. Closure was officially brought about by the demise of Mount Wellington Mine, which would increase the already considerable burden of pumping at Wheal Jane. Production figures also show that output from Wheal Jane had declined probably due to hasty exploitation of rich ore and a lack of development of ore reserves.
Carnon Consolidated Tin Mines Ltd, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation Ltd, acquired Wheal Jane in 1979 from Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd, and the shaft and underground workings of Mount Wellington Mine from the Receivers of Cornwall Tin and Mining Limited. The mines were refurbished to operate as one unit, using the mill at the Wheal Jane site. In 1980 production restarted, reaching 1499 tonnes in 1981 and 1863 tonnes in 1984.

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There is a good book called "Painting a mine with light" by John Peck which is worth a look.

Jane was a fair old hole as Cornish Mines go. As someone said, Crofty had the ore but Jane had the mine.

They had some rather large kit there from looking at the pics.

Peck had a lot online with some truly incredible photos, but I've lost their whereabouts. They dug some huge holes.

That machine is the Robbins raise borer that they had, it was quite some machine, being cable of boring out a 200m deep 1.5m diameter raise!

As far as I'm aare there is no way on this earth that a council would direct somebody to tip crap down a mine shaft!

One thing I'm interested in is what the modern workings went through.

Clemows shaft was bored out and present on the 1920 6" maps. It's an old shaft. I'll check dines again, but I assume that the lode from Tremayne end carries right the way through. The last bit of stoping is Whitfords stope, which is under the tractor place. I'm assuming that deep adit carries on towards the modern workings and probably intersects more stoping.

I haven't had a look myself yet and neither has anyone else that I've spoken to. (I imagine others have). It's a case of deep adit being neck deep in gunge. I reckon it goes.

I assume the "Wheal Jane" workings (ie, those to the immediate W of tremayne) are sited on a deeper part of the lode. I know falmouth shaft goes to water and I assume the other big open shafts near the genny building do also. I assume this is deeper working on the tin lode.

I haven't had a look at the string of workings "Sperries" which are parallel and to the NW of the main jane lode. There are numerous shafts on HJ which I've yet to look at.

A blast off to the CRO is needed.

Since there is no information on Sperries or Genny house end of Jane, I assume they are either straight to water or filled in.

Sperries has a deep adit but I have no idea where it comes out.....

I believe he is dumping spoil there as it is where the Council have decreed to be an official dump!

Does this make any sense to anyone?!

Just had a quick word with Allen Buckley and he should know. Absolute nonsense.

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Ok now let me try to settle this once and for all. The Wheal Jane that is known as Old Wheal Jane ie the section containing Tremayne's Shaft, Giles's Shaft, Gilbert's Shaft, Black Dog Shaft, Gweal Durrant Shaft, Falmouth Shaft, Greens shaft, Field Shaft Tippets Shaft (east), Dunstan's Shaft, and Boudary Shaft, all belonged to Falmouth Consolidated Mines Ltd aka Falcons. They worked the main lode, a body of Cassiterite impregnated Pyrites. lying next to this was a Copper lode known as Ready Money Lode.

The shaft near the Power House is Gile's and is blocked from a good way down to deep adit.

The Wheal Jane that was opened by Consolidated Goldfields was West Wheal Jane, and continued from Boundary shaft on Falcons following the strike of the main lode and taking in several others including the westward extension of Ready Money and an old lode known as Basset Graze. The backs of these lodes have been worked by costeaning since Elizabethan times and there is still a very large open pit on the West Wheal Jane site that originates from this period. The westward boundary of the original W.Wheal Jane isnt too far from Clemmow's Shaft, 400 yds or so, as Wheal Widden is the adjoining sett.

Just one more thing to add is the location of Whitford's Stope. The tractor repair shop is right next to Tippet's Shaft (east) and Whitford's Stope is the first stope you enter from Tremayne's Shaft followed by Webber's Stope, roughly 750 metres east of the tractor shop.
The adit from Falcons continues through into West Wheal Jane, through Wheal Widden and on into Nangiles where it discharges into the Carnon River.
East of Tremayne is another sett known as 'The Bunny' this was never connected to the Tremayne's section in any way, however a little further east again is the site where Goldfields started to push in a decline which would have passed under the bunny and below the workings of Wheal Jane and then would have intersected the West Wheal Jane workings. What the ultimate idea of this was I have never had explained to me, so this is where I'm stepping out. I hope this has answered a few questions.

Mea culpa! my fault for loading the Raiseborer to the wrong site!!!

:oops: 😞 :surrender:

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RE: dumping @ JANE

Don't know any reason why anyone would be permitted to
dump in a shaft .........

BUT i do know that for a number of years after closure
there was a lot of dumping in the tailings dam.....
builders rubble etc by the lorry load on a daily basis.
maybe this is still permitted ??? dunno ???

Not officially but I've a feeling I read somewhere that there is an agreement to dump the sludge generated by the decontamination of the water.

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The tailings dam was a licenced tip for certain wastes for a long time after closure, in order to in fill the lagoon, it is now full except for the area used for water treatment

As soon as I get my caplamp battery shoehorned into a self rescuer, I'll be wanting to have a look down here. A first trip for a poke around and a second one to see how far along deep adit I can get.

I'm sure when I threw a rock down Giles' shaft, it hit water. I'm sure.....

The survey I've seen is obviously incomplete, talking to people who went in there a long time ago.....

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who'd like to have a poke around in the workings. Enough people do do a safe trip. I think my usual suspects are likely to be busy.

I'd like to have a poke around Sperries surface, which is something I haven't done yet, or even considered.

It's posiible of course that there may be some water pooling on top of the blockage but the blockage is there to see at the end of Giles's crosscut off deep adit. I managed to dig around it and get into the deep adit pump chamber....nothing left in there, unlike the one on the 60 Fm level which contained the pump and all the valve gear along with timber lined cast iron pipes, and a hand operated crane, much like the ones in Box mines. unfortunately this is now all under water. 😢

P.S.
Hi Stuey et al,
These plans ought to answer a few questions relating to the Falcons / Old Wheal Jane / Wheal Jane East, boundaries and the locations of the shafts in relation to the workings.


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🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-076[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-076[/linkphoto][/link]

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Thanks Roy, that is top information. I'm going to study it in detail now!

As far as I'm aare there is no way on this earth that a council would direct somebody to tip crap down a mine shaft!

I think it's more likely to be on the site rather than down the shaft!

Mind you, given the behaviour of some councils, I wouldn't be surprised ::)

Are we happy with SW775426 as a grid ref?

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The grid refs I have are as follows;

Wheal Jane (old) in Kea Parish aka Famouth consolidated Mine = SW74 783434

Wheal Jane (north) in Kenwyn Parish = SW74 789439

Perran Wheal Jane in Perranzabuloe Parish = SW75 757526

Wheal Jane (West) in Kea Parish, the site on which Consolidated Goldfields and RTZ operated up to the 1980s = SW74 777427.

There are a few more mines with either the name Wheal Jane or Jane in
them and I include them below.

Wheal Jane in Perranuthnoe Parish = SW52 542293

Wheal Jane. Estimated GR of trial adit Parish not stated = SW62 627723

There are also Wheal Jane’s at

Altarnun,

Calstock (SX46 - - - - - -)

and one at Phillack near Hayle. No GR or location available.


The following have no WHEAL prefix;

Jane East at Cardinham SX16 136656

Jane East at St.Pinnock SX 172647

Jane East 3miles ENE of Lanhydrock, Bodmin. No GR or Location

East Jane 1¼ miles from Doublebois Railway station. No GR or location.

Jane South at Broadoak. No GR or lolcation.
I hope I don't find any more 😢

🙂

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Just to add to that in more modern times No 2 and Clemow's Shafts and the mill were at SW 765430.

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Thanks Malcolm.
P.S. I like the new avatar.

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Very interesting about that map you put up Roy. Dines refers to the same year and I'm assuming that section was a part of it.

At some point, I'm going to head into CRO and have a look at the whole lot.

One thing which interests me about plans is this.

Reading "County Adit" by Allen Buckley as well as "Cornwall's future mines", both refer to CRO stored plans and stuff held by Carnon Consolidated and Private Collections. I assume that it wasn't a legal requirement to have all plans held by an official body.

It's a shame there isn't a central database really, or even an online service you could peruse electronic versions of all of them.

Considering the amount of resources and staff these places have, it would be fitting to have things available to avert the hassle being required to view them. For instance, a years membership of a site, costing say £70 for an adult would be a fantastic resource and an earner for them. At the moment, I assume if you are doing some research, the odd document to peruse would be even more troublesome.

Roll on the next few years, I say.