Was it Crofty or Wheal Jane......I can't remember.
According to legend, quite recently there was all sorts of mining kit at one of the St Day yards. It was one of the old mines clearing out some stuff. There were several smaller sheave wheels.
With scrapyards....I had to scrap the tooling for an ill fated project.....and had to go through all the rigmarole at the scrapyard. As I was producing ID and going through the protocol, a tipper truck full up with kindly jolly chaps appeared to not have to abide by the same set of rules.
They live on a parallel universe to the rest of us.
Having had a unit at United Downs, I was quite familar with "stuff happening" around there, it is unfair to label all of the 3.1416 keys with the same brush. Some of them are very nice, decent people. However, a small minority are not. I gather when "visitors" come, it is a pretty much free for all crime wise. I gather it's the visitors who are a bit more ambitious.
I find it hard to imagine that someone with a lorry would roll up and remove some wheels without going and notifying the people in the office, only for the whole risk assessment, site management, tick box, safety talk reasons.
I was up there yesterday having a poke around. It appears that the adit is blocked, looking at the water levels around there.