East Pool mine
Encyclopedia
East Pool mine was a metalliferous mine in the Camborne and Redruth mining area, just east of the village of Pool
in Cornwall
, England. Worked from the early 18th century until 1945, first for copper and later tin, it was very profitable for much of its life. Today the site has two preserved beam engine
s and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
World Heritage Site
.
at the mine is metamorphosed killas
and greenstone
overlying the Carn Brea
granite. The many lode
s on the sett
are all crossed by several elvan
dyke
s. The mine's main produce was copper
and later tin
, arsenic
and wolframite
, also small amounts of the ores of bismuth
, cobalt
and uranium
.
") was leased from the Basset family
and it generated enough money for that family to build their country house at Tehidy
. The mine's adit
was 32 fathom (192 ft; 58.5 m) below ground and mining had taken place 16 fathom (96 ft; 29.3 m) below this, the workings being drained by a flatrod system powered by a water wheel
south of Pool village. This phase of mining ceased in 1784.
The mine restarted as East Pool mine in 1834. Its small sett (about 900 by 400 yards) was bounded on the west by South Crofty
and Tincroft mines, and on the south by the Carn Brea mines. On its north was Wheal Agar, with which it was later to merge. The mine had a very productive and long life, raising 91000 LT of copper ore and, later, 46000 LT of tin ore. In its early days the copper ore here was particularly rich, selling in 1835 for over £12 a long ton which was more than twice the average price at the time. This first profitable period lasted for ten years during which time a total of £32,256 dividends were paid on the 128 shares that had cost their owners a mere £5 each.
By 1843 the mine was employing 300 people and its deepest workings were at 90 fathom (540 ft; 164.6 m). However a slump in the later 1840s almost caused the closure of the mine, and its workings became partly flooded which jeopardised the neighbouring South Crofty mine. This caused Lady Basset
to threaten to revoke the sett unless the mine was fully worked. The mine struggled on—one regular source of income was the monthly drainage charges totalling £60 that were paid by the neighbouring mines, including Wheal Agar—but it was not profitable again until 1854.
In 1860 a rich body of ore containing wolframite
was discovered. This ore has a similar specific gravity
to cassiterite
and the normal methods used for separating the ore from gangue
could not separate these two minerals. To solve this problem a Wetherill's Magnetic Separator
, which could process 10 tons of ore per day, was installed.
East Pool was one of the few mines, along with South Crofty, Tincroft, Dolcoath
and Wheal Basset and a few others, that were able to survive the depression of the Cornish mining industry
in the late 19th century. All these mines were close to one another and pumping water from the workings was still of highest priority: if any of the pumping engines stopped there were serious repercussions at the other mines. Such was the problem of underground water that their winding (whim) engines were adapted to haul water by using self-tipping water-skips—this was done at East Pool in 1897. East Pool mine still had a problem with water coming from Wheal Agar, which was losing money at the time and kept threatening to switch off its pumps, which it did in late 1895. The productive lower levels of East Pool flooded, meaning that it was restricted to reworking its older higher levels. Negotiations between the two mines continued for over a year until, after the intervention of Lord Robartes
who owned the Wheal Agar land, East Pool purchased Wheal Agar and all its equipment for £4,000, taking possession on 10 March 1897.
called East Pool and Agar Ltd.
Since the 1860s, the mine had had an extensive ore processing plant located just over a mile to the east in the Red River
valley at Tolvaddon, and from 1903 until August 1934 ore was transported there via a mineral tramway which used part of the track of the Camborne and Redruth Tramway, going through Pool village
. After the tramway closed in 1934 the ore was carried by an aerial ropeway which ran directly across the countryside to the mill. This was a successful system that continued in use until the closure of the mine in 1945.
In 1921 there was a large rockfall underground which destroyed both of the mine's winding shafts, and caused flooding, so the next year a new shaft
, named Taylor's Shaft after the mine manager, was started. In 1924 a notable 90 inches (2.3 m) pumping engine was installed at this shaft, having been moved from Carn Brea mine where it had lain unused since 1914. It was known as Harvey's Engine and had been designed by Nicholas Trestrail and built in 1892 by Harvey & Co. It pumped water from the mine using seven lifts of pumps of 18 and 16 in (0.4572 and 0.4064 m) diameter. The 110 feet (33.5 m) chimney stack for this engine's boilers was completed before the engine house was built. The unique feature of this stack, the vertical letters "EPAL" displayed in white bricks near the top, is still visible. As well as standing for "East Pool and Agar Limited", "EPAL" was also the brand name of the arsenic sold by the company.
The mine was taken over by its neighbour, South Crofty
and closed in 1945, but Harvey's Engine continued to pump water out of the South Crofty workings until 28 September 1954, when it was replaced by electrical pumps.
World Heritage Site
, and two beam engines have been preserved here. Michell's Shaft Engine House ( 50.2280°N 5.2647°W) contains the last beam whim engine to be installed in Cornwall. It has a cylinder of 30 inch (0.762 m) diameter and was built in 1887 by Holman Brothers. It cost £675 and was designed to run at 27 strokes per minute and have a winding speed of 1000 ft/min. The engine was saved from being scrapped in 1941; it has been in the care of the National Trust since 1967 and since 1975 is still run on occasions.
At Taylor's Shaft the National Trust
has an Industrial Discovery Centre called Cornish Mines and Engines which incorporates several buildings dating from the 1920s. One of these is the engine house still containing the 90 inches (2.3 m) Harvey's Engine, which was saved through a donation from an American benefactor.
(The data for East Pool is available online at )
Pool, Cornwall
The village of Pool is bypassed by the A30 in West Cornwall, situated on the A3047 between Camborne and Redruth, between Tuckingmill and Illogan Highway.Not to be confused with:* Poole, the town in Dorset....
in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, England. Worked from the early 18th century until 1945, first for copper and later tin, it was very profitable for much of its life. Today the site has two preserved beam engine
Beam engine
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to remove water from mines in Cornwall...
s and 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 is metamorphosed 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 greenstone
Greenschist
Greenschist is a general field petrologic term applied to metamorphic or altered mafic volcanic rock. The term greenstone is sometimes used to refer to greenschist but can refer to other rock types too. The green is due to abundant green chlorite, actinolite and epidote minerals that dominate the...
overlying the Carn Brea
Carn Brea
Carn Brea is a civil parish and hilltop site in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The hilltop site is situated approximately one mile southwest of Redruth.-Neolithic settlement:...
granite. The many 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 on the 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....
are all crossed by several 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 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...
and later tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
, arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
and wolframite
Wolframite
Wolframite WO4, is an iron manganese tungstate mineral that is the intermediate between ferberite and huebernite . Along with scheelite, the wolframite series are the most important tungsten ore minerals. Wolframite is found in quartz veins and pegmatites associated with granitic intrusives...
, also small amounts of the ores of bismuth
Bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...
, cobalt
Cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
and uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
.
History to 1900
East Pool mine started out in the early 18th century as a copper mine called "Poor Old Bal". The land under which it was allowed to mine (the "settMining 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 leased from the Basset family
Baron Basset
Baron Basset, of Stratton in the County of Cornwall, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1797 for Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville, with remainder, failing heirs male of his own, to his daughter the Honourable Frances Basset...
and it generated enough money for that family to build their country house at Tehidy
Tehidy Country Park
Tehidy Country Park is located near Camborne, Redruth and Portreath. It was once part of a created estate that was owned by the wealthy Basset Tin mining family.Covering , the estate was purchased by Cornwall County Council in 1983...
. The mine's adit
Adit
An adit is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, and ventilated.-Construction:...
was 32 fathom (192 ft; 58.5 m) below ground and mining had taken place 16 fathom (96 ft; 29.3 m) below this, the workings being drained by a flatrod system powered by a water wheel
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...
south of Pool village. This phase of mining ceased in 1784.
The mine restarted as East Pool mine in 1834. Its small sett (about 900 by 400 yards) was bounded on the west by South Crofty
South Crofty
South Crofty is a metalliferous Tin and Copper mine located in the village of Pool, Cornwall, England UK. An ancient mine, it has seen production for over 400 years, and extends almost two and a half miles across and down and has mined over 40 lodes. Evidence of mining activity in South Crofty has...
and Tincroft mines, and on the south by the Carn Brea mines. On its north was Wheal Agar, with which it was later to merge. The mine had a very productive and long life, raising 91000 LT of copper ore and, later, 46000 LT of tin ore. In its early days the copper ore here was particularly rich, selling in 1835 for over £12 a long ton which was more than twice the average price at the time. This first profitable period lasted for ten years during which time a total of £32,256 dividends were paid on the 128 shares that had cost their owners a mere £5 each.
By 1843 the mine was employing 300 people and its deepest workings were at 90 fathom (540 ft; 164.6 m). However a slump in the later 1840s almost caused the closure of the mine, and its workings became partly flooded which jeopardised the neighbouring South Crofty mine. This caused Lady Basset
Frances Basset, 2nd Baroness Basset
Frances Basset, 2nd Baroness Basset was a British peeress suo jure.Baptised in St Marylebone Church in London on 23 May 1781, she was the only child of Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville and Basset and his first wife Frances Susanna, daughter of John Hippesley Coxe...
to threaten to revoke the sett unless the mine was fully worked. The mine struggled on—one regular source of income was the monthly drainage charges totalling £60 that were paid by the neighbouring mines, including Wheal Agar—but it was not profitable again until 1854.
In 1860 a rich body of ore containing wolframite
Wolframite
Wolframite WO4, is an iron manganese tungstate mineral that is the intermediate between ferberite and huebernite . Along with scheelite, the wolframite series are the most important tungsten ore minerals. Wolframite is found in quartz veins and pegmatites associated with granitic intrusives...
was discovered. This ore has a similar specific gravity
Specific gravity
Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density of a reference substance. Apparent specific gravity is the ratio of the weight of a volume of the substance to the weight of an equal volume of the reference substance. The reference substance is nearly always water for...
to cassiterite
Cassiterite
Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem...
and the normal methods used for separating the ore from gangue
Gangue
In mining, gangue is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. The separation of mineral from gangue is known as mineral processing, mineral dressing or ore dressing and it is a necessary and often significant aspect of mining...
could not separate these two minerals. To solve this problem a Wetherill's Magnetic Separator
Magnetic separation
Magnetic separation is a process in which magnetically susceptible material is extracted from a mixture using a magnetic force. This separation technique can be useful in mining iron as it is attracted to a magnet....
, which could process 10 tons of ore per day, was installed.
East Pool was one of the few mines, along with South Crofty, Tincroft, Dolcoath
Dolcoath mine
Dolcoath mine was a copper and tin mine in Camborne, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. Its name derives from the Cornish for 'Old Ground', and it was also affectionately known as The Queen of Cornish Mines. The site is north-west of Carn Brea. Dolcoath Road runs between the A3047 road and Chapel Hill...
and Wheal Basset and a few others, that were able to survive the depression of the Cornish mining industry
Mining in Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall and Devon began in the early Bronze Age approximately 2,150 BC and ended with the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall closing in 1998...
in the late 19th century. All these mines were close to one another and pumping water from the workings was still of highest priority: if any of the pumping engines stopped there were serious repercussions at the other mines. Such was the problem of underground water that their winding (whim) engines were adapted to haul water by using self-tipping water-skips—this was done at East Pool in 1897. East Pool mine still had a problem with water coming from Wheal Agar, which was losing money at the time and kept threatening to switch off its pumps, which it did in late 1895. The productive lower levels of East Pool flooded, meaning that it was restricted to reworking its older higher levels. Negotiations between the two mines continued for over a year until, after the intervention of Lord Robartes
Thomas Agar-Robartes, 6th Viscount Clifden
Thomas Charles Agar-Robartes, 6th Viscount Clifden , known as the 2nd Baron Robartes from 1882 to 1899, was a British Liberal politician....
who owned the Wheal Agar land, East Pool purchased Wheal Agar and all its equipment for £4,000, taking possession on 10 March 1897.
After 1900
Despite its problems, in almost every year from 1884 to 1913 more than 500 people were employed at the mine, with roughly half employed above ground and half underground. In 1913 the mine converted from a company that was run on the cost-book principle to a limited companyLimited company
A limited company is a company in which the liability of the members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. And the former of these, a limited company limited by shares, may be...
called East Pool and Agar Ltd.
Since the 1860s, the mine had had an extensive ore processing plant located just over a mile to the east in the Red River
Red River, Cornwall
The Red River is a small river in north-west Cornwall, UK which issues into St Ives Bay at Godrevy on Cornwall's Atlantic coast. The Red River is approx 8 miles long and gets its name from the mineral deposits associated with tin mining which formerly coloured its water red...
valley at Tolvaddon, and from 1903 until August 1934 ore was transported there via a mineral tramway which used part of the track of the Camborne and Redruth Tramway, going through Pool village
Pool, Cornwall
The village of Pool is bypassed by the A30 in West Cornwall, situated on the A3047 between Camborne and Redruth, between Tuckingmill and Illogan Highway.Not to be confused with:* Poole, the town in Dorset....
. After the tramway closed in 1934 the ore was carried by an aerial ropeway which ran directly across the countryside to the mill. This was a successful system that continued in use until the closure of the mine in 1945.
In 1921 there was a large rockfall underground which destroyed both of the mine's winding shafts, and caused flooding, so the next year a new shaft
Shaft mining
Shaft mining or shaft sinking refers to the method of excavating a vertical or near-vertical tunnel from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom....
, named Taylor's Shaft after the mine manager, was started. In 1924 a notable 90 inches (2.3 m) pumping engine was installed at this shaft, having been moved from Carn Brea mine where it had lain unused since 1914. It was known as Harvey's Engine and had been designed by Nicholas Trestrail and built in 1892 by Harvey & Co. It pumped water from the mine using seven lifts of pumps of 18 and 16 in (0.4572 and 0.4064 m) diameter. The 110 feet (33.5 m) chimney stack for this engine's boilers was completed before the engine house was built. The unique feature of this stack, the vertical letters "EPAL" displayed in white bricks near the top, is still visible. As well as standing for "East Pool and Agar Limited", "EPAL" was also the brand name of the arsenic sold by the company.
The mine was taken over by its neighbour, South Crofty
South Crofty
South Crofty is a metalliferous Tin and Copper mine located in the village of Pool, Cornwall, England UK. An ancient mine, it has seen production for over 400 years, and extends almost two and a half miles across and down and has mined over 40 lodes. Evidence of mining activity in South Crofty has...
and closed in 1945, but Harvey's Engine continued to pump water out of the South Crofty workings until 28 September 1954, when it was replaced by electrical pumps.
Today
Today, the site is within area A5 (The Camborne & Redruth 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...
, and two beam engines have been preserved here. Michell's Shaft Engine House ( 50.2280°N 5.2647°W) contains the last beam whim engine to be installed in Cornwall. It has a cylinder of 30 inch (0.762 m) diameter and was built in 1887 by Holman Brothers. It cost £675 and was designed to run at 27 strokes per minute and have a winding speed of 1000 ft/min. The engine was saved from being scrapped in 1941; it has been in the care of the National Trust since 1967 and since 1975 is still run on occasions.
At Taylor's Shaft the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
has an Industrial Discovery Centre called Cornish Mines and Engines which incorporates several buildings dating from the 1920s. One of these is the engine house still containing the 90 inches (2.3 m) Harvey's Engine, which was saved through a donation from an American benefactor.
Sources
(The data for East Pool is available online at )