The Mines of Gwennap - Wheal Gorland

OS Explorer Map 104: Grid reference SW730427

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Wheal Gorland sett lies immediately northeast of St. Day. Situated to the northwest of Telegraph Hill and sandwiched between Pink Moor and Tolgullow, between the setts of Wheal Pink to the west and Park-an-Chy Mine to the northwest. The northern section of the sett was worked as Wheal Muttrall from about 1790. Known to have been at work in 1792, the mine worked a number of lodes. These were: Dinnis's Lode; Davey's Lode, worked from Davey's Shaft and Sims' Shaft; Robert's Lode worked from Roberts Shaft, Collins' Shaft and Williams' Shaft; Muttrall Lode worked from Bawden's Shaft, Muttrall Shaft and Old Engine Shaft; Green's Lode worked from Green's Shaft and Garby Lode worked from Garby Shaft. There were also shafts called Paul's Shaft and Davey's Footway Shaft present on the site.

Wheal Gorland produced copper, tin, arsenic and tungsten prior to its closure in July 1911. There was even some gold found in the gossan. Production however was very erratic as the ore present was exceedingly variable. It sold ore worth over £20,000 between 1792 and 1798, yet closed on several occasions. It worked the same lode as Wheal Unity to the east, that mine making a profit of £200,000. Wheal Gorland became part of the St. Day United Group in 1852 but was abandoned in 1864.

Production reports show that Wheal Gorland produced: 40,750 tons of 7.5% copper and 15 tons of tin between 1815 and 1851, worth over £255,000. In the period between 1906 and 1909, Wheal Gorland raised and sold 164 tons of wolfram. More information about Wheal Gorland and its immediate area can be found at the Camborne School of Mines Virtual Museum website.

The fickle nature of the mine can be illustrated best by looking at reports made during its lifetime:

George Abbot writes of Wheal Gorland in his 1833 book 'An Essay on the Mines of England: Their Importance as a Source of National Wealth' that the mine had made profits of over £300,000 and produced 1,400 tons of ore per annum. It ranked third, in terms of profits, just behind Dolcoath and Consolidated Mines, in a table of 'Mines which have been continuously productive, and are still working profitably'.

However just over thirty years later in his 1865 book entitled 'The Mines of Cornwall and Devon: Statistics and Observations', Mining historian Thomas Spargo simply states: '... now part of St. Day United; idle.'

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