St. Austell Mining District - Great Dowgas Mine

OS Explorer Map 106: Grid reference SW963514

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Great Dowgas Mine lies about one and a half miles southeast of St. Stephen to the west of St. Austell in the St. Stephen Section of the St. Austell Mining District. Including Wheal Unanimity, it later worked with Ventonwyn Mine, Great Dowgas was mainly a tin mine that also produced sizeable amounts of cobalt. Dowgas worked Great Stopes Lode, Copper Lode, New North Lode, Woodhead's Lode and South Lode from a number of shafts. These included: Engine Shaft, Trevanian's Shaft, Western Shaft, Rhodes Shaft and Blinken's Shaft.

The tin mine under the ownership of Great Dowgas Tin Mines Ltd., produced 129 tons of black in the years 1838, 1856-1859 and 1907. It also raised 4 tons of cobalt ore in 1857. Other minerals found on the sett were Cassiterite, Hornblende, Schorl and Pyrite.

Mining historian Thomas Spargo did not have a lot to say about Great Dowgas in his 1865 's book, entitled 'Statistics and Observations on the Mines of Cornwall and Devon'. He writes simply '... Tin mine, in St. Stephens, was always a poor mine, and the works have wholly ceased, at least underground, but the sett, I believe, has not been surrendered'.

Now that 'World Heritage' status has been achieved Cornwall in Focus will monitor developments and learn how the mines of the St. Austell District fare within the overall Mining framework.

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