is for sale

Are you talking the plot of land with the holes in, or the engine house?

If the latter, I imagine it will have a comedy price which you would think would better fit a fully restored Towanroath Pump house.

They do come up from time to time. Broadgate pump house (New Consols) came up with an absolutely ridiculous price. Then there was Trencrom multipurpose engine house with a ridiculous 20 year clawback clause.

For the record, I gather Belowda Mine aka Beacon Mine was last operated in something like the 30s. The second Bradford Barton engine houses book has a good photo of it looking pretty complete.

Do you have a link?

Edit:-

http://www.vebra.com/property/2966/20721247 

It appears to be the engine house/dressing plant. The holes are further up on the hill.

Edit 2:-

Interestingly enough, the plan:-

http://www.vebra.com/details/property/floorplan/20721247 

Shows 2 shafts, which indicates the rotary engine probably ran a set of flat rods and perhaps also hoisted (but probably also ran some heads of stamps) from the shaft in front, a la Daubuz Engine at S Wheal Frances.

Those shafts weren't on my map. They look to be there on google earth. I don't think the workings had an drainage adit (even though there is a level up the hill) and I imagine the lowest of the 2 shafts was a farmers bin. I'll go and have a look.

Interesting, I almost started a thread on this mine, a while ago. There are also some interesting remains further along the hill towards castle an dinas. I wonder if these were the mill remains of Belowda Mine.

....and whilst I'm at it. The engine house and the 2 shafts are not on the 6" 1907 map which suggests they are a part of a later working. I'm going to St Columb tomorrow, I'll have a sneaky peaky.

The sale is an auction which includes the mine house a ruined cottage and 4 acres. Guide price is £50,000! 😮
Advert was in the Cornish Guardian today

There are some excellent photos on the Flickr photo sharing website. John Durrant's has posted several there, including this beauty. Flickr: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3537/3522911364_b270713ff5.jpg ]
Phil at St Columb

That's pretty cheap.

If I remember rightly, Trencrom had a guide price of £5k and it went for a LOT more than that.

I bet those shafts have nice collars. We went and had a poke-round but couldn't find anything, but we were working off old maps.

Engine house is in pretty good order. It's very small though.

Myself and my partner have fallen in love with this amazing building, only living past Roche we see it quite often and will most definately attend (if not partake) at the auction.

Have tried to find info on the engine house before but with little Belowda specific info found.

Seems most likely built around the 1870's?
Is there any shaft names or identification details? read that they may have only gone down around 200ft so assume they were filled and not just capped?
Does any knowledgeable person known what all buildings were used for?

sorry for all the questions.....would love to have seen these incredible sites in working order just to discover what 'that little hole' was for or what went where, have only just discovered all the treasures at luxulyan valley, could spend all day in awe of the skill and craftmanship that used to be.

Joe

FOUND THIS ON GOOGLE -Otherwise known as Beacon Hill Mine, Belovely or Belowda Beacon, the sett of Belowda lies just to the northwest of Victoria about two miles north of the A30 at Roche in the Belowda Section of the St. Austell Mining District. The sett is bounded to the west by Tregonetha and to the east by Little Brynn.

Chiefly a tin mine Belowda worked Wheal Dora Lode and Webb's Lode worked from a couple of unnamed shafts. The enterprise was quite short-lived and was only in operation for 30 years - 1872 to 1902, during this time it produced 49 tons of tin. There were attempts at reopening the mine in 1909, 1921 and 1935 but these came to nothing. Mining Historian H.G. Dines reports Belowda as having 'Never shown large returns'.

There are two lodes near Belowda beacon, Wheal Dora Lode, coursing N.° 20 E. and Webbs Lode coursing N.° 15., which converge northwards to meet at the summit of the hill (744ft O.D.) where they were worked open cast. A shaft 500yds NE of Belowda village, on Wheal Dora is near the southern margin of the granite outcrop; and another, 140 yds SSW of the former , is in killas. The main shaft on Webb's Lode is on the granite margin, 550 yds N by W of Lane End farm and there are two others at 80yds SSE, respectively of the main shaft. Though the mine was active until 1902. There are no plans of the underground workings.
The metalliferous mining region of South-West England by Henry George Dines, H. M. Stationery Office, 1956
Page 525

Dines appears to have missed about the Engine Shaft and the one in front of it (footway?) - Unless I am being lazy having not measured the maps.

I have the 1906 edition of the 6" maps and the only workings are those on the hill. (Near the opencast bit). I gather the last working had something to do with driving a level into the hill workings. This would suggest that the workings down the hill are later and possibly something to do with the lot which ran until 1935.

I thought the engine house may have been a stamps for the higher working, but looking at the estate agent's plan, it appears that the engine may have been a combination of all duties.

I had a sneaky peaky the other day and my legs were defeated by the brambles/nettles around the shaft tip. Should have gone prepared. My money is on that shaft being open but probably full of water at no great depth. The engine house is in a more sorry state than it looks and my initial hunch is that it will be bought and left to deteriorate further. The rear wall has moved a tad.

It would be good to see it restored.

The Great Royalton mine (the nearby stack) is an interesting poke around and Brynn Tye is also meant to be interesting. I haven't gone adit hunting down there, but I bet there is one.

The 'Listed Building' regs look a bit of a challenge! 😉

What did it make in the end and did any of you get it?

Fetched £110,000. Guess someone must of really fell in love with it. I did! Short of a few quid thougjavascript:emoticon(':lol:')h... :lol:

let's put this in perspective. An old friend of mine lives in the Redruth area in a house which he has long since paid the mortgage for, and is currently valued at £275,000.

If you have paid £110,000 for a four-acre site you can build a nice house for £165,000 actual building costs, and never go near the engine house at all. You have a nice 'feature' on your property, maybe you build another house and sell that... a nice house on an acre, say, would sell well...

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