I am out and about a fair bit and the other day, I was reading something about the Mineral Tramways Project and the various shaft works which were taking place up at Consols and United (Gwennap). It is very interesting reading. Several years ago, I bashed through all the brambles with map in hand trying to find every hole which I could. I looked for the shafts in this area (there are 4) and assumed they were plugged. According to the document, one is sollared over with rotting timbers. I thought "I'll go and have a look"

The shaft is here. Click the link and note what those marks are. That's right folks, people have been driving their landrovers over the tips.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=50.229081&lon=-5.157316&z=19.9&r=354&src=msl 

I popped up and surely enough, there appears to be a "fair old patch" which is "2 deep" in pieces of wood about the section of railway sleepers. They are pretty ripe. My guess is that the shaft is open underneath and people have been driving their landrovers over it. I informed the police. It will be interesting to see whether this shaft gains a fence. If it doesn't, you read about it here first.....landrover disappears down (flat)rods shaft (which is probably a fair old hole).

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The second piece of head scratching madness is what is on at Wheal Busy (Harvey's Engine Shaft). We decided to go and have a look at some shafts which were historically known to be on the move and noted that the tree huggers appeared to have vacated the engine house site. We have never been able to get in there to look for anything connected with the shaft.

I have heard rumours that "something is going on" at Wheal Busy and Lord Falmouth is going to make it all super. There is something happening, as there is a storage container and a welfare cabin on site, as well as a "fair old" mini-digger. Not so much of a mini digger, more of a adolescent digger, if you get me.

Anyway, it appears these "operators" have decided to excavate the cateract pit inside the engine house with this digger. I wonder if they think it's the shaft..... In order to do this, they have been driving their rather heavy digger over the rather large and covered-by-unknown-means shaft.

We just scratched our heads. It might be wise if anyone happens upon these workmen, to explain there is a rather large hole under them and it might be an idea to chain the digger to something and strap the bloke in to it!

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I'm surprised there is any mining dangers left around there, it's not as if no body knows nothing about the area.

Maybe Busy is going to be the Cornwall/World international airport hub as was proposed some years ago.

Lozz.

Apparently, everything is in order at Wheal Busy. They are restoring the engine house/boilerhouse and "the mining people" have been called in, written all sorts of reports and it's all fine. "The boss wouldn't allow us to work if we were at risk"

I couldn't see any evidence of it having been drilled. Doesn't mean it wasn't though.

There is a fair old thickness of fill there, no evidence of any sort of concrete at all. God knows what they are sat on. It's hopefully not a few girders, corrugated iron and a few mixer fulls of concrete made out of the tip material!

They seemed confident.

I wrote...."I'm surprised there is any mining dangers left around there, it's not as if no body knows nothing about the area"

I should have referred that to your first picture ie: United Downs etc.

Last time I was around Wheal Busy you could buy half a car for a few notes from old man Duckworths.

Lozz.

It's quite strange, the 2004 report which outlined the state of everything for capping/walling/restoring relating to the mineral tramways project seems to have fallen short at United.

Everywhere else was sorted. Consols had it's nice walling, Unity Wood got nice collared and caged shafts. United was totally left alone. The report clearly states that various structures are potentially dangerous and should be remediated. Nothing has been done at all.

Interestingly, the stoping on Hot Lode is virtually to surface.

It appears that not only was nothing done to make everything super for dog walkers, nothing was done to make obvious potentially dangerous holes that people in land rovers have been driving over.

The explorer in me is itching to get up there with a big bar and hoik some of those timbers off and have a look what's underneath. ....must....r..rre...siissss...t

"The explorer in me is itching to get up there with a big bar and hoik some of those timbers off and have a look what's underneath. ....must....r..rre...siissss...t "

I did that years ago just to get some firewood, it used to burn with pretty flames....but left more rocks in the grate than ashes.

Last time I was down that way most shafts everywhere were still open and they were just starting the cone cage program

I suppose it's all down to who owns what, liability and of course cash.

Was the area under the tip ever documented before it succumbed to land fill ?

Lozz.

Parts of it were documented with the landfill expansion by the CAU, the arsenic works went under, as did some tin processing gear (small scale buddles and the like).

Jane probably have some information/photos relating to their excursions into the area in the days of the decline project.

I think Operation Minecap got a few of the low hanging fruit in the area (like a couple by the road near the entrance to the tip). I think the rest of them were pretty much open/per consols.

I recall reading an old paper article about a lad falling down a shaft having mucked about with "the timbers" in the 70s. I wonder if the 20th century workings saw shafts sollared over.

RoyM has some interesting anecdotes about teague's openwork (40's tin rework of a rich tin lode). I imagine it would be possible to get into it from the bottom of Sampson's Shaft (assuming this is not being used as a methane resevoir).

Sadly, the area is very poorly recorded. There are some articles in mining magazine from the 30s which show a few of the engine houses (Poldory, etc) which you wouldn't see....and a history of Gwennap book which has the same thing.

I wonder if there are a load of photos from the 1860's 70's of it when it was at work....like there are from the rest of Redruth. I gather a lot of stuff went west in the Scorrier House fire...but there must be more.

I wonder if Bullen has any in the Trounson collection....

The R103 plans are very descriptive, particularly the surface layouts of united and consols....it really brings the place to life.

DB, I've never seen any old underground photo's of that area when it was working, as you know there's a fair few of the Camborne district.

I wonder if they have any old monochrome aerial pics of United Downs area, great swathes of the country were photographed from the air not long after WW2, I think they adapted Spitfires or similar for that purpose.

County Hall used to have all the ones for Cornwall, I got one of them for that piece of land I own, very interesting.

At the time they wanted about a tenner for a computer copy (which I paid) that was around 1998/9

For a proper copy I was told that some other ACME Photo Hoarding Co. actually owned the originals and that they would charge a fair whack for a copy with bells on.

I can't swear by it but I think the one I got of my land was dated somewhere around 1947, some lens/movement/astigmatism distortion at the edges but the bulk of the picture was a decent resolution and came through quite well as a glossy computer print and was good enough to identify extant features that had survived.

If you or anyone hasn't consulted that archive it might be worth contacting County Hall to see if they still hold that collection and if they have the ones that cover an area of a particular interest.

Lozz.

If your area is anything like Wales it is worth taking a close look before ordering pictures. It also helps if you can get details of the flight.

A lot of early flights used "oblique" cameras which look out of the side of the aircraft. With these you get a side view.
Other flights had look down cameras which give an almost true plan view.
Also due to the camera, weather, light and altitude quality is variable.

When I got mine I was able to view the original first so I was ok, they also sorted me out without me having to make an appointment....probably not like that now...

Lozz.

The vertical air photos referred to are early OS sorties flown 1946-48 by ex RAF pilots. Quality varies due to occasional cloud - and due to some pilots not maintaining an adequately level and straight course (photography was a down come after flying fighter planes, I suppose).

Around the 1970s the OS parcelled them the negs and contact prints (about 10in square, high quality) out to other government departments and organisations. The Welsh Office set up an air photography library in Cardiff where they were very welcoming and provided stereographic viewers. I used the central Wales prints in the 1980s and found them very useful indeed, defects notwithstanding.

A few years ago the Welsh coverage was transferred to the Royal Commission.

Probably best to try English Heritage to track down what happened to the English material. Its likely to be very interesting.

Asked an official about how the new East west link road and CPR redevelopment was going around Dolcoath - stray park area and was told, it has been slowed down by unknown shafts. Although I haven't spotted any capping operations in passing. Anyone else heard about undiscovered shafts around that area?

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We were drilling up there and we hit a shallow feature in the "bottleneck" between the roulette wheel and Harriet's shaft. As you know, there were some things which moved near Dunkin's Garden Footway shaft. I wished I had a camera on a stick. I don't imagine it was anything apart from a shallow void which didn't go anywhere.

What is surprising is how the DLG shaft plugging operation (modern) missed half of that stuff. They plugged a shaft about 10ft away from a significant hole! I'm surprised the concrete mixer/digger didn't sink.

We blew a load of very ferrous cuttings out of a hole and it was almost blood red. My mate ran it across a shaking table and it was 2.5% tin by mass. I separated it into 2 piles....the red stuff and everything else and it's still up there!

"The vertical air photos referred to are early OS sorties flown 1946-48 by ex RAF pilots. Quality varies due to occasional cloud - and due to some pilots not maintaining an adequately level and straight course (photography was a down come after flying fighter planes, I suppose)."

Thanks, yes, those will probably will be the ones I saw at our local county hall, they might have been the originals for the county or photographic copies, I couldn't say for sure but our local county hall would know.

Lozz.

I'm in the record office on thurs and fri. I'll ask.

They have been better guarded than "the maps" which everyone has a copy of.

We were drilling up there and we hit a shallow feature in the "bottleneck" between the roulette wheel and Harriet's shaft. As you know, there were some things which moved near Dunkin's Garden Footway shaft. I wished I had a camera on a stick. I don't imagine it was anything apart from a shallow void which didn't go anywhere.

There was always a suspicion of boarded over coffin works or a shallow adit system (but I think AB + others explored some of this in the 90s). Anything SW of Dunkins to Harriets, down to 20ft - 25ft, has now been obliterated....looking at the bits of brickwork and woodwork that has been churned up. I know they churned it up in the 80s / 90's but I think they have gone deeper this time. All I can do is photograph whatever comes up in the latest excavations.

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http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/archives-and-collections/nmr/enquiry-and-research-services/archive-enquiry 

They'll give you a list of what they hold on a given grid ref within a stated radius, I'd advise getting photocopies first to get an idea of what quality a shot is, then decide which ones you want to get prints of. If you're feeling flush then get overlapping shots and you can use a stereoscope to view, which really brings the detail out!

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We came to the conclusion that the openworks/outcrop was here.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=50.215413&lon=-5.284652&z=17.8&r=0&src=msl 

There was some sort of a tunnel east of the mark. Too shallow to be a shallow adit. Maybe it was some sort of leat for the wheel in bullen garden. We pointed a drill at it but found nothing.

I think the only realistic way into dolcoath will either be from pushing the adit system upwards, or dropping William's Shaft (which is connected to the adit) according to plans. I gather a lot of the shallow stuff is your semi-backfilled/filled/crushed openworks and the shafts on the outcrop sunk through this mess. Certainly, the hole which opened up bore the marks of having kibbles dragged up it, but the other 3 walls were just rubbish.

A fair few of the staff who are likely to be on the site and responsible for investigating these sorts of things are completely indifferent to anything outside of their drill logs/trench. It's a shame, as they are the people who open up (and then cover over) a lot of interesting things. Thankfully, the CAU have watching briefs over "interesting" things, however much has been obliterated in the meantime.

More recently, with the advent of Health and Safety gone Maaaaayyyde, things which are interesting and open really do not stay that way for very long. You hear about the DLG shaft plugging up at tresavean in the 90s and people were like rats going down the shafts as soon as the workmen disappeared. Over at Cornwall's Biopark, I was having a look at what they were up to (knowing they were going to open up some interesting things) and they would uncover it and get the first pour done in a day. Very slick operation.

Regarding Busy, I was told recently (but I cant remember by who) that the engine shaft was capped with concrete. This would fit as we know it was open during the war. The American engineers that were stationed there managed to get the engine to stroke and pump water for some showers. They gave up after the soldiers all started dissolving!!:lol:

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Lots of things are capped with concrete, it depends whether it's C30 and the plug is appropriately engineered, or whether they merely choked the shaft and threw some concrete on top (a la comfort shaft, carbis bay) or whether it's bits of angle iron and corrugated iron covered with some concrete mixed up by a bloke with a shovel/wheelbarrow.

If it predates minecap (which it does) it could be anything. I read something somewhere about a vent pipe. There was nothing in evidence. I have seen some totally shocking shaft capping methods (including from underneath).

It's probably a better idea to fence/hedge them off.

I recall reading that Harvey's Shaft of Busy was slashed out to some pretty serious dimensions. That would make a lid more of a likely thing. I wonder what the steels are like. We dropped a shaft in Creegbrawse which had been fitted with a batcastle (probably by Cornish Tin sometime after operation minecap, but before the DLG plugging and the girders were looking pretty sorry. (non-galv).

I wouldn't drive anything over it, unless it had been drilled to prove it. Since it was under 6ft+ of backfilled rubbish, I presume the drillers either hadn't drilled it and the person who authorised such works was on thin ice, or they did drill it and cased the top section off from the shyte.

In my estimation it had neither been drilled or trenched (unless you count them trenching over the top with their 2000kg+ digger!)

It reinforces the popular notion that Cornwall is crawling with idiotic hillbillies.