The Mines of Gwennap - Wheal Damsel

OS Explorer Map 104: Grid reference SW728417  Map

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Location
The sett of Wheal Damsel lies half a mile southwest of St. Day. The sett includes Wheal Hope to the north and is bounded by Cathedral Mine to the west, Ting Tang Mine to the south, Clifford Amalgamated Mines to the southeast and United Mines to the east. The Wheal Hope section of Wheal Damsel worked on three lodes: Shop Lode from Chilcott's Shaft, Kit's Lode from Kit's Shaft and Pressure Engine Lode from Pressure Engine shaft. Wheal Damsel section meanwhile worked on Main (or North Lode) from Michael's, Skew's and Old Sump shafts, Darlingstone's Lode, Middle Lode, South Gilbert's and Knotwell's Lodes.

History
The mine is thought to date from about 1795 and was producing 'quite a large amount of copper ore by 1806'. Between 1815-36 and 1838, and 1845 and 1872, the mine raised 37,600 tons of 8.75% copper ore, 77 tons of black tin and 114 tons of fluorspar. George Abbott Jnr. writes in his 'Essay on the Mines of England' that Wheal Damsel had made more than £100,000 by 1833. Its most productive year was 1861, when it had an output of almost 1830 tons of copper ore at a value of over £7672. The manager at this time was Captain Richard Pryor.

The mine was abandoned in 1873.

For more information on production dates and so on please see Roger Burt's excellent book Cornish Mines: Metalliferous and Associated Minerals, 1845-1913 (Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom, 1845-1913).

For those of you with possibly a little more time to explore, once you've done 'the tourist bit', why not explore Cornwall's industrial heritage through its Tin and Copper Mines or learn more from my Cornish Bookstore