Roy Morton and Roy Fellows may be correct in identifying a 'Wheal Sophia' in 'Botus Fleming' parish, however (a) they identify it as a copper mine, and (b) their map identifies it not in 'Botus Fleming' but much further away, south of Lawhitton, southeast of Launceston. There might well be a Wh Sophia near Lawhitton, and it may well have been a copper mine, however more certainly there was indeed a 'Wheal Sofia in Botus Fleming parish', but rather than a 'copper mine' it was actually a not-very-successful trial for silver-lead. This Wh Sofia was located north of Moditonham Quay on a small creek off the Tamar, approximately 2km north of Saltash, Cornwall. The remains include a stack, remains of an old shaft, and one or two adits of limited length.

However, Botus Fleming parish does exist and has a website viz
http://www.botusfleming.org.uk/ 

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According to the annotations on the Hamilton Jenkin Map 37SE,
Cornwall South Tamar Lead Mines "formerly called Moditonham or Wheal Sophia", Mining Journal 13th August 1853

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According to the annotations on the Hamilton Jenkin Map 37SE,
Cornwall South Tamar Lead Mines "formerly called Moditonham or Wheal Sophia", Mining Journal 13th August 1853

Page 495
🔗117255[linkphoto]117255[/linkphoto][/link]

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Right yoo lot, dun a bit of a digging.

I don't know of South Tamar being known as Wheal Sophia. All the other names are a bit boring and go down the "Bere/bear/beer Alston Silver/Lead Mines" lines. There are good maps in the DRO of this.

The Wheal Sophia Mining Company was chugging away 1846-54 just south of Greystone Bridge in Lezant parish, Cornwall. There's a E-W lode shown on the Warrington Smyth geo maps and Sophia is on the eastern tip of this before it penetrates d*von.

By the sounds of it, they sunk the shaft like 20fms and decided of all things to put a call out to the adventurers to buy a man engine. Geddon. This didn't happen, and the shareholders also told them to FO when buying a spanking new steam engine was suggested, so they settled with a waterwheel. Whilst cutting the leat from a headweir somewhere north of the bridge, another lode was cut and a small company floated called Newland Consols.

This silliness aside, Sophia was the first mine in cornwall to use electrically detonated blasting. Eventually, they did manage to badger the sugar daddies into shilling out for a steam engine in 1853, however this was sold a year later when the mine closed in 1854. It's recorded as being a "10hp high pressure rotary steam engine"; the only indication that this mine was ever there is a chimney recorded on the 1884 OS.

In 1879 East Longdown Mine (where HJ has erroneously marked sophia) were playing around in Sophia and had whacked up some expensive new offices near the coachroad. Of course, none of this ever floated a profit.

Here is the proper location of the mine:
https://zoom.earth/#50.596723,-4.309473,16z,sat 

Feel free to use this to update the desc of the mine!

:)

Back in 2004 a hole appeared in the garden of Greystones Cottage, southwest corner of Greystones Quarry, and a few of use, Dave W, Hugh, Trish and myself surveyed it and produced a small report on the area... I believe there was a Wheal Sophia in that immediate area...

Message me if you'd like a copy...

Regards Tin Miner

Yes Karl Marx.... the stables from that period are still in situ at Greystones Cottage...

There is indeed a Wheal Sophia on the shores of the Tamar a few hundred yards north of Moditonham Quay. A couple of pages are dedicated to it and the associated Wheal Fortune in my decaying copy of AKHJ's Mines and Miners of Cornwall,Vol XIV, St.Austell to Saltash (pp62-64).

In 1846, "the finest mundic" was discovered on the Moditonham Estate in Botus Fleming on the shores of Kingsmill Lake. In 1851, an engine house, stack and 20" William West engine were installed on site and the shaft deepened to 20 fathoms. In the same year a lead lode was exploited in the North Adit. On 17 January 1852 the MJ carried an advertisement for the sale of the whole undertaking.

Close by on the Landulph side of the creek work began in spring 1851 on Wheal Fortune, which claimed to be an extension of the lodes of South Hooe.

In 1965 AKHJ could find no remaining trace of Wheal Fortune. However, in the same year, he noted the stack, shaft and burrow of Wheal Sophia intact in the grounds of a bungalow called (mistakenly, he said) Wheal Fortune, 200 yards N of Moditonham Quay. The adit, on the foreshore, had been examined by Sir Arthur Russell in 1950.

And, reader, I have seen Wheal Sophia's stack for myself- 1972 as I recall.

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Hi,
Reading of Wheal Fortune reminded me of the one of the world's worst mining jokes :

After the first successful descent, the explorers went to the local pub to sing:

Landulph Open Glory !

D.Send.