anyone in the area of wheal jane? hows the adit overflows in the area ? i see on the news the water treatment plant is being overwhelmed , lol i see the fire brigade are there, how are their pumps gonna do much ,flooded or not its a long way down to water ...think its a bit out their league lol. oh well all that money faffing about n a bit of rain n it s useless.oh n anyone in the area how are those collapses on b lode , all on the outcrop opposite mt welly adit there are runs to surface, heaven knows what its like down there now i know waters all backed up in poldice,water could could burst forth anywhere round there . :blink:

Legend has it that the watertight doors into United Mine were not closed when it flooded. This means there is an utterly huge catchment area for water. No wonder their pumps can't keep up!

I was in Squire Woods the other day having a poke around and the sound of water in Pump Shaft from a shallow level pouring into a deeper level was deafening. I know that when it was worked in the 80's they had to pump 300gals/min from this level. One of many. I don't think that much water gets into Jane from Consols (but a bit will) but the Jane catchment area runs from Basset Graze Sett (to the south) to North Jane on the East, through Wheal Jane, West Jane, Widden, Nangiles, Wellington, Ale and Cakes (united) Poldory, Squire, Ting Tang and Wheal Moyle. Ting Tang adit also extends into Damsel!!!! Then you have Wheal Sperries to the North.

It is a huge run of mines and keeping it all dry is going to be a nightmare. Especially since the united branch of the county adit is blocked and drainage happens through Hot Lode....

I wonder if the big valves on the Jane adit still work and whether if they do (they are currently turned off) what horrors are backed up behind them. I know for sure that the Nangiles adit is concreted up, Wellington adit is blocked and it would appear that all the ingredients for a blockage blow out of one of the Widden/Basset Graze adits is on the cards.

However, nothing like that will happen, eh?

It's not like the county adit/stream are flowing like hell to water things down a bit.

The last disaster was a totally different kettle of fish IIRC.

This will be interesting, which mining company are they going to blame this time, oh is the EA, so who hasn't got a plan B ! I wonder if not having enough big pumps when it rains was part of the risk assessment, or did someone take the same view as people I work with that its not needed and won't happen ! 😮

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This will be interesting, which mining company are they going to blame this time...

The owner of the mine whose adit is discharging the water, regardless of how many other mines the water may come from?

This will be interesting, which mining company are they going to blame this time...

The owner of the mine whose adit is discharging the water, regardless of how many other mines the water may come from?

There lies the issue, that company no longer exists and you can't get blood out of stone. The NRA (Now EA) took over full responsibility for the mine water discharge in 1991 (Prior to the 1992 incident).

The law never changed until 1998 - just after South Crofty's closure when the mine owner was made liable. This is why following South Crofty's closure, the bizarre situation occured where Carnon Contracting (The then contracting arm of South Crofty plc) were contracted by the EA to refurbish South Crofty's adit system and refit Roskear shaft.

Why didn't they just let the adit run, as they would have done when consols, united, etc, etc, etc in that area close.

I gather all the hysteria and poorly thought out, knee jerk response (in my opinion) was due to the adit being blocked and the usual pumping stopping and the levels going way above the jane deep adit (you can see the water levels in nangiles on the concrete wall of where it was before the **** hit the fan).

Is anyone able to go over and have a look down Bread and Cheese shaft of nangiles and see where the water is. It's usually about 8ft below the planking and crap in there (adit level). If it is above this, they have themselves a problem.

I expect it is and I expect they do, in order for them to make a fuss. Someone could also have a look in nangiles manway and see where the water is in relation to the railway level in there (which is marginally above jane's adit by about 8ft). If this is backed up, they have a problem.

Surely they are pumping so much that their treatment works is working at the double.

Won't someone think of the oysters!!!!!

To answer the collapses on B lode question, I know of only one and that's the one in amongst the pine trees more or less opposite Mt Wellington's adit.
This however is not a collapse but a backfilled stope which was, until about 1980 open to daylight and just had the remains of a collar wall around it and an angle iron and barbed wire fence as protection.
🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-81043[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-81043[/linkphoto][/link]
After some initial fossicking and ground disturbance by a couple of mineral companies, the council, in their infinite and wide ranging wisdom, landscaped the area with some free money they had going spare and simply bratticed off the stope with a few tree trunks (untreated) and bulldozed a whole load of surface material into the hole; JOB DONE! That was easy!
Only a few weeks after this had been completed the ‘Stull’ they had created suffered a partial collapse see below.
🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-81044[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-81044[/linkphoto][/link]
Further to this, they appear to have ‘lost’ a shaft which is now somewhere in the undergrowth 40 feet north of this collapse. Its condition is unknown at present but I explored the stope in the mid 70’s and worked my way along to a position where I was able to look up into a large void and see daylight from the ‘lost shaft’. The shaft continued below me to water which was about 80 feet down.
I believe this to be an old horse whim shaft probably pre-dating the stoping to surface.
The shaft can be seen in the foreground with the stope beyond and the old bed of the Carnon River a few yards behind that.
🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-81045[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-81045[/linkphoto][/link]
They can’t really claim they didn’t know what it was as this was documented in a collection of portraits first published in the Mining Journal between 1857 and 1859 by George Henwood, cousin to William Jory Henwood, and subsequently issued as a book published by Bradford Barton in 1972 (Mines and Miners of Cornwall) The following extract is from one of these articles.
“..........we proceeded to the spot at which we were promised to show the underlie, or dip of the lode; this we found at the base of the Nangiles hill, where the miners have stoped the lode to the surface, and the vein is denuded. This great lode is from 14 to 20 feet wide, dips north 20 deg., is composed of Capel, Jasper, Quartz, Prian, Chlorite, Oxide of Iron, Mundic, Copper and Tin ores, and is the beau ideal of what a lode should be. Being wrought to the open day, the modus operandi of mining may be here readily and correctly understood by those who have not the physical power or nerve to descend the mine. We know of not an example affording so practical and favourable an illustration; it is well worthy a visit, and is easily found. Our friend was delighted with the opportunity of studying so fine a lode as this by daylight. “

The stope can be seen bottom right in this photo
🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-81046[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-81046[/linkphoto][/link]

There are plenty of Maps and plans that show it in all its glory too.
It's a real pity they destroyed the area, the stope was impressive. The shaft has had a great deal of material removed from around it and the roof of the stope beneath can be only a matter of feet (no more than 10- 15 tops) and certainly poses a potential future hazard, No messing!

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That's on the actual Nangiles adit, rather than the Bread and Cheese adit that everyone mistakes for the Nangiles adit, is it not?

One thing is certain, there are a lot more adits in that area than simply, Bread and Cheese and West Jane adit.

Incidently a Mining Journal report stated that Wheal Andrew at one stage was pumped by a waterwheel powered by water flowing out of the county adit & discharging from a lower adit. I don't know how much fall there is between County Adit & sea level but it can't be much, but was a bit suprised that a lower adit could exist.

very interesting stuff folks anyway the official line is its under control now , we shall see,

oooppps more pumps then lol, may as well dewater the damn thing all this money n effort ,not only that it blights the site n cant exactly be appealing to any companies that may potentially be interested in working it again , it such a shame the way things worked out ,another ten or twenty years i think most of the issues with water n ore complexity woulda gone away , reading thru those reports i had half what they where doing was pillar extraction ( mir ) mining in retreat, the rest was solving the issues of water ,its such a shame they never really completed what was started ,i live in hope tho one day the area will get a go again .yes it was a tough job but they where winning it was the damn tin price and the cost of getting it sorted out that killed it, come back RTZ u had the rite ideas .