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GREAT WHEAL BUSY COPPER AND TIN MINE CHACEWATER
Is in the parish of Kenwyn, and about 6 miles from Truro, and close to the Chacewater station, on the West Cornwall Railway. Necessary Machinery is being erected, including a 90-inch pumping engine (erected) and a 70-inch engine with steam stamps, with 32 heads (but it is proposed to increase this number to 100); there is also a winding machine, with steam capstan attached, steam hammer, saw mills, etc. The sett is about 1 and 3 Quarters miles in length, and running east and west. There are several lodes transferring the sett, which have yielded in former workings large quantities of tin and copper. Jose's engine shaft is sunk 150 fathoms from adit, and Black Dog engine shaft 50 fathoms below adit. The company is on the costbook system, and is in 5,000 shares; £25,000 have been called up.
Managers & Pursers Messrs. LEAN JOSE AND COMPANY
Resident Agent Charles BISHOP
GREAT WHEAL BUSY MINES
Are in the parish of Kenwyn,m and within the mining district of Chacewater, 4 miles from the town of Truro. The nearest shipping place is at Hayle, 14 from the mine, and the nearest railway station is at Chacewater. The mine is held under a lease for 21 years , from 1855, at a royalty of 1-24th, granted by Viscount FALMOUTH; it is now worked for tin and copper. The company is on the costbook system, and consists of 5,000 shares of £10 each, with 50s paid representing a capital of £15,000
Purser John JOSE esq. Falmouth
Captain Charles BISHOP Redruth
The house at the Engine Shaft site has contained three different engines during its life; the first of these was an 85 inch cylinder Harvey-built engine, the installation of which prompted much celebration when the foundation stone was set in May 1856. Over 10,000 people are understood to have attended the event with many of these arriving by train courtesy of the West Cornwall Railway. The inauguration included a formal procession to the mine, a special service at Chacewater Church, a roast ox, and a celebration dinner for the adventurers followed by fireworks. Following the cessation of this working in 1868 the engine was sold, but in January 1872 a 90 inch engine was ordered from the Williams’ Perran Foundry at Perranarworthal which was installed and working on site by December that year. Known as Jose’s Engine, after one of the partners in the new venture, its life at the mine was to be only brief as it was submitted for auction in September 1873 following the mine’s closure. The engine house was to be reused for the third time in 1909 when a secondhand 85 inch engine was installed, also of Perran Foundry construction, and at this time the original attached boiler house was demolished and a new construction erected on the western side, to accommodate three Lancashire boilers.
This engine house, as is the case with many others across Cornwall, has held more than one engine during its operational lifetime, as the mine sett (the area leased from the land owner) was reworked by successive companies. A Harvey’s Hayle Foundry engine with an 85 inch diameter steam cylinder was first installed in 1856, this pumping from the Engine Shaft for 10 years until the partial closure of the mine in 1866. The house was next occupied by the Perran Foundry 90 inch cylinder machine in 1872, this working for only six months before being decommissioned in July the following year. Finally, a reconditioned 85 inch cylinder Perran engine was installed c.1909, this working until 1924. As was often the case with large beam engines on redundant mines in Cornwall, this was to stay unused in its house as there was no longer a commercial demand for steam pumps in mining. The engine was left to deteriorate and only succumbed to the attentions of the scrap man 28 years later, in 1952. Careful inspection of the engine cylinder bedstones (its foundation) reveals that these were most probably left in situ and reused from the brief working of the 1870s. The scaffolding erected to enable the consolidation of the chimney and engine house also afforded an excellent ‘aerial’ view of the bedstones, and close inspection of the photograph (below) reveals that these have been modified at some stage. Two of the six holes cut to accommodate the engine cylinder hold-down bolts appear to have been cut or roughly reshaped using a series of adjoining drill steel holes (see below). Presumably this was done to accommodate the smaller 85 inch cylinder at the time of the final working.