I paid a visit to Wheal Peevor the other week - the first once since 1990 and my first since the site was conserved as part of the Mineral Tramways Project. What is clear is that there is quite a lot of overgrowth - in particular gorse - which whilst in bloom and adding a splash of colour is smothering some of the remains!

Sir Frederick's Shaft appears to be home to a colony of feral and wood pigeons as well as doves evidenced from their coming and going through the grating and the quite loud cooing emanating from its depths! 🙂

 

Sir Frederick's Shaft pumping engine house viewed from within the whim engine house.


 

View from near Sir Frederick's Shaft to the stamps engine house showing the profusion of gorse!

 

The somewhat overgrowth obscured arsenic works

 

the three engine houses viewed from the west

 

Stamps engine house and stamps loadings

 

Stamps engine house looking through the boiler house

 

Sir Frederick's Shaft

 

Whim Engine House


https://www.jhluxton.com/Industrial-Archaeology/Mines-of-Devon-Cornwall/Wheal-Peevor/ 

John

---

So the pigeons and doves are still there! They surprised me during a visit to the site in 2014.
The clean up of many engine house and mining areas within the county is to be welcomed, although the purists may ague that this is akin to "sanitizing" sites. Certainly the Cornish gorse is something to be reckoned with, and its removal is to be welcomed. My last brush with this stuff was while trying to gain access to the Wheal Liberty viaduct on the long disused Perranporth branch line; it defeated my attempts and I came ways with sore legs.
As an aside, the convenient little parking places which have been made to many interesting mining locations are often surrounded with this invasive, but colourful plant, and thus screening one's vehicle from prying eyes. But, at the same time this gives the local mafia an ideal cover for a quick smash and grab and the broken glass at the parking spot for Killifreth was enough to persuade me to abandon my short stroll to revisit the site after many years.

---

I have parked around these sites without trouble for many years. The glass may relate to past rubbish dumping.
If you dont leave valuables in sight, which is what the police keep telling us, your less likely to be hit. They go for what they can see more often than not.

---

There are/were 2 interesting geo-caches there.

This is all a bit nostalgic. When I first saw the Great Flat Lode engine houses, in the 1970s they were pretty much inaccessible for the gorse and other overgrowth, like lost cities in the South American rain forest.

Fortescue’s Shafts were accessible - Water was pumped from them, during the 1976 drought.