Consolidated Mines
Encyclopedia
Consolidated Mines, also known as Great Consolidated mine, but most commonly called Consols or Great Consols was a metalliferous mine about a mile ESE of the village of St Day
, Cornwall, England. Mainly active during the first half of the 19th century, its mining sett
was about 600 yards north–south; and 2,700 yards east–west, to the east of Carharrack
. Although always much troubled by underground water, the mine was at times highly profitable, and it was the largest single producer of copper ore in Cornwall. Today the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
World Heritage Site
.
at the mine was killas
and the mine's main produce was copper
, though small amounts of black tin
, arsenic, pyrite and zinc ore were also raised. There are about eight main lode
s at the mine, crossed by elvan
dyke
s. The most important lode was Virgin Lode which was stoped
for over 1.3 miles (2.1 km).
, but the engines had been struggling to keep the water levels down and they were so expensive to run that all the mines had closed during 1779.
As part of the merger, five Boulton and Watt engines
were ordered to replace the seven Newcomens. The new engines were operational by 1782 and saved almost £11,000 a year on coal, though the mine had to agree to Boulton and Watt
's standard terms which included payment of an annual charge (known as "dues") of one third of the fuel saved. In fact the mine negotiated with the company and paid £2,500 each year. In 1784, Boulton and Watt built the first steam whim (winding engine
) in Cornwall here, and in 1788 they installed an underground pumping engine on the Wheal Virgin site; this was one of only two underground engines installed in Cornwall before 1850.
The end of the 18th century was a difficult time for Cornish copper mines, because the vast quantity of ore that was being mined cheaply from Parys Mountain
in Anglesey was flooding the market. In 1787 Consols made a loss of some £8,000, and some time in the 1780s Boulton and Watt acquired an interest in the mine, probably in lieu of payment of their dues; furthermore in around 1788 the company reduced the dues to £1,000 a year to help keep the mine open. At this time it was one of only two mines in Cornwall to employ over a thousand people, North Downs mine being the other.
raised the capital (around £65,000) to restart the mine. The mine rapidly became profitable, but its problem with underground water continued, and in 1820 "Job's Engine", which had a 90-inch-diameter cylinder, was installed for pumping water, followed in the next year by another engine of the same size. Both were single-cylinder engines designed by Arthur Woolf
and built by the Neath Abbey Ironworks, and they were celebrated as being the largest and most powerful steam engines in the world at the time. A 58 inch engine was also installed, and by 1829 another three engines had to be added.
In 1824 Taylor built the Redruth and Chasewater Railway
to transport the ore from this mine (and other ones nearby) to the port of Devoran
. By 1839 the mine was employing 3,000 people, and the previous year it was recorded that 826 men and boys were working more than 100 fathoms (182.9 m) underground, at an average depth of 229 fathoms (418.8 m). One of the youngest children recorded as working down a Cornish mine was killed near the 120 fathoms (219.5 m) level in November 1831. He was eight years old. Some of the lower workings were extremely hot: for instance the air temperature at the 294 fathom (538 m) level was recorded at 96 °F (35.6 °C), increasing to 108 °F (42.2 °C) in places, and the water that collected at the bottom of Davey's shaft was 92.5 °F (33.6 °C)—the men working in the lower levels used this to cool themselves!
During its relatively short life, Consols was a phenomenally productive copper mine: between 1819 and 1858 it produced 442,493 tons of ore, the largest quantity from any single mine in Cornwall, and the ore it had sold had realised over £2 million. Such was its fame that many other mines were opened using the words "Consolidated" or "Consols" in their names, hoping to profit by association with the success story.
By the 1850s it was clear that the copper mines in the west of Cornwall were becoming exhausted and this together with the start of foreign production (from Chile, for instance) led to a spate of closures or further mergers to reduce running costs. Consolidated Mines ceased working in 1857, and in 1861 amalgamated with the neighbouring United Mines and Wheal Clifford to form Clifford Amalgamated Mines, which continued, unprofitably, until 1870.
World Heritage Site
. Several of the shafts at the mine are still open, but covered with "Clwyd Caps", which are pyramidal wire meshes. These include Bawden's shaft, Michell's shaft, and Woolf's shaft which was sunk in 1826 and at 300 fathoms was one of the deepest in the area. There are a few ruined buildings, a tall chimney and two engine houses in ruins. A clock tower survives at the former site of Wheal Maid.
St Day
St Day is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated between the village of Chacewater and the town of Redruth.St Day is located in a former mining area and St Day accrued considerable wealth from mining...
, Cornwall, England. Mainly active during the first half of the 19th century, its mining sett
Mining sett
Mining setts were a legal arrangement used historically in the counties of Devon and Cornwall in South West England to manage the exploitation of land for the extraction of tin....
was about 600 yards north–south; and 2,700 yards east–west, to the east of Carharrack
Carharrack
Carharrack is a civil parish and village in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated two miles east of Redruth in a former mining area.The parish is of a rural/industrial character and is comparatively small in area...
. Although always much troubled by underground water, the mine was at times highly profitable, and it was the largest single producer of copper ore in Cornwall. Today the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes across Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of the United Kingdom...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
.
Geology
The country rockCountry rock (geology)
Country rock is a geological term meaning the rock native to an area. It is similar and in many cases interchangeable with the terms basement and wall rocks....
at the mine was killas
Killas
Killas is a Cornish mining term for metamorphic rock strata of sedimentary origin which were altered by heat from the intruded granites in Devon and Cornwall, England. The term is used in both Devon and Cornwall.-Origin of killas:...
and the mine's main produce was copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, though small amounts of black tin
Black tin
Black tin is the raw ore of tin, usually cassiterite, as sold by a tin mine to a smelting company. After mining, the ore has to be concentrated by a number of processes to reduce the amount of gangue it contains before it can be sold...
, arsenic, pyrite and zinc ore were also raised. There are about eight main lode
Lode
In geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fissure in a rock formation or a vein of ore that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock....
s at the mine, crossed by elvan
Elvan
Elvan is a name used in Cornwall and Devon for the native varieties of quartz-porphyry. They are dispersed irregularly in the Upper Devonian series of rocks and some of them make very fine building stones...
dyke
Dike (geology)
A dike or dyke in geology is a type of sheet intrusion referring to any geologic body that cuts discordantly across* planar wall rock structures, such as bedding or foliation...
s. The most important lode was Virgin Lode which was stoped
Stoping (mining method)
Stoping is the removal of the wanted ore from an underground mine leaving behind an open space known as a stope. Stoping is used when the country rock is sufficiently strong not to cave into the stope, although in most cases artificial support is also provided...
for over 1.3 miles (2.1 km).
History to 1800
Although there had been mining in the area for over 400 years, Consolidated Mines was formed in 1782 by the amalgamation of a number of neighbouring mines including Wheal Girl, West Wheal Virgin, Wheal Virgin, Wheal Maid, Wheal Fortune and Carharrack mine. The underground workings of these mines were interconnected, and before the merger they had been having significant problems with underground water. They were jointly running seven Newcomen engines to pump water from their workings into the Great County AditGreat County Adit
The Great County Adit, sometimes called the County Adit, or the Great Adit was a system of interconnected adits that helped drain water from the tin and copper mines in the Gwennap area of Cornwall, in the United Kingdom...
, but the engines had been struggling to keep the water levels down and they were so expensive to run that all the mines had closed during 1779.
As part of the merger, five Boulton and Watt engines
Watt steam engine
The Watt steam engine was the first type of steam engine to make use of steam at a pressure just above atmospheric to drive the piston helped by a partial vacuum...
were ordered to replace the seven Newcomens. The new engines were operational by 1782 and saved almost £11,000 a year on coal, though the mine had to agree to Boulton and Watt
Boulton and Watt
The firm of Boulton & Watt was initially a partnership between Matthew Boulton and James Watt.-The engine partnership:The partnership was formed in 1775 to exploit Watt's patent for a steam engine with a separate condenser. This made much more efficient use of its fuel than the older Newcomen engine...
's standard terms which included payment of an annual charge (known as "dues") of one third of the fuel saved. In fact the mine negotiated with the company and paid £2,500 each year. In 1784, Boulton and Watt built the first steam whim (winding engine
Winding engine
A winding engine is a stationary engine used to control a cable, for example to power a mining hoist at a pit head. Electric hoist controllers have replaced proper winding engines in modern mining, but use electric motors that are also traditionally referred to as winding engines.Most proper...
) in Cornwall here, and in 1788 they installed an underground pumping engine on the Wheal Virgin site; this was one of only two underground engines installed in Cornwall before 1850.
The end of the 18th century was a difficult time for Cornish copper mines, because the vast quantity of ore that was being mined cheaply from Parys Mountain
Parys Mountain
Parys Mountain – in the Welsh language Mynydd Parys – is located south of the town of Amlwch in north east Anglesey, Wales. It is the site of a large copper mine that was extensively exploited in the late 18th century.-History:...
in Anglesey was flooding the market. In 1787 Consols made a loss of some £8,000, and some time in the 1780s Boulton and Watt acquired an interest in the mine, probably in lieu of payment of their dues; furthermore in around 1788 the company reduced the dues to £1,000 a year to help keep the mine open. At this time it was one of only two mines in Cornwall to employ over a thousand people, North Downs mine being the other.
1800 onwards
The Parys Mountain ore was mined out by about 1800, and the price of copper soon rose again, reaching a high of £138 per ton in 1805. Many new mines were started and existing mines restarted at this time. Despite this boom, for some unknown reason Consols was substantially closed in or just before 1811 and it was not until 1819 that mining entrepreneur John TaylorJohn Taylor (Civil Engineer)
John Taylor was an English land surveyor and civil engineer. He was born in Norwich, England and showed an interest in mining at a young age; in 1796 he improvised a mechanised copper ore crusher at Wheal Friendship, a mine just outside of Tavistock, Devon. This machine was improved over time and...
raised the capital (around £65,000) to restart the mine. The mine rapidly became profitable, but its problem with underground water continued, and in 1820 "Job's Engine", which had a 90-inch-diameter cylinder, was installed for pumping water, followed in the next year by another engine of the same size. Both were single-cylinder engines designed by Arthur Woolf
Arthur Woolf
Arthur Woolf was a Cornish engineer, most famous for inventing a high-pressure compound steam engine. As such he made an outstanding contribution to the development and perfection of the Cornish engine.Woolf left Cornwall in 1785 to work for Joseph Bramah's engineering works in London...
and built by the Neath Abbey Ironworks, and they were celebrated as being the largest and most powerful steam engines in the world at the time. A 58 inch engine was also installed, and by 1829 another three engines had to be added.
In 1824 Taylor built the Redruth and Chasewater Railway
Redruth and Chasewater Railway
The Redruth and Chasewater Railway, otherwise called the Redruth and Chacewater Railway using modern spelling, was a very early industrial railway line in Cornwall, England, UK that opened in 1825 and closed in 1915...
to transport the ore from this mine (and other ones nearby) to the port of Devoran
Devoran
Devoran is a village in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated four miles southwest of Truro at . Formerly an ecclesiastical parish, Devoran is now in the civil parish of Feock....
. By 1839 the mine was employing 3,000 people, and the previous year it was recorded that 826 men and boys were working more than 100 fathoms (182.9 m) underground, at an average depth of 229 fathoms (418.8 m). One of the youngest children recorded as working down a Cornish mine was killed near the 120 fathoms (219.5 m) level in November 1831. He was eight years old. Some of the lower workings were extremely hot: for instance the air temperature at the 294 fathom (538 m) level was recorded at 96 °F (35.6 °C), increasing to 108 °F (42.2 °C) in places, and the water that collected at the bottom of Davey's shaft was 92.5 °F (33.6 °C)—the men working in the lower levels used this to cool themselves!
During its relatively short life, Consols was a phenomenally productive copper mine: between 1819 and 1858 it produced 442,493 tons of ore, the largest quantity from any single mine in Cornwall, and the ore it had sold had realised over £2 million. Such was its fame that many other mines were opened using the words "Consolidated" or "Consols" in their names, hoping to profit by association with the success story.
By the 1850s it was clear that the copper mines in the west of Cornwall were becoming exhausted and this together with the start of foreign production (from Chile, for instance) led to a spate of closures or further mergers to reduce running costs. Consolidated Mines ceased working in 1857, and in 1861 amalgamated with the neighbouring United Mines and Wheal Clifford to form Clifford Amalgamated Mines, which continued, unprofitably, until 1870.
Today
Today, the site is within area A6i (The Gwennap Mining District) of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining LandscapeCornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is a World Heritage Site which includes select mining landscapes across Cornwall and West Devon in the south west of the United Kingdom...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
. Several of the shafts at the mine are still open, but covered with "Clwyd Caps", which are pyramidal wire meshes. These include Bawden's shaft, Michell's shaft, and Woolf's shaft which was sunk in 1826 and at 300 fathoms was one of the deepest in the area. There are a few ruined buildings, a tall chimney and two engine houses in ruins. A clock tower survives at the former site of Wheal Maid.