Tolgus Mines - Wheal Tolgus & Tolgus United

The Tolgus Valley runs from Blowinghouse (grid.ref 687418) at Barncoose towards Harris Mill (grid.ref 681384). There are records of mines working on Tolgus Downs from at least 1706 with Wheal Tolgus working here from 1819-1844. In fact, the area of Redruth known as Plain-an-Gwarry used to be a separate village based around several ancient ore deposits, with the leat flowing down Falmouth Road, along Chapel Street and skirting the village on its way to Tolgus Downs. Needless to say the water was utilised by the population to power corn mills as well as ore stamping mills along its route north. See also the remains of the old Tolgus Tin streamworks beside Portreath Road. A search of the local Census records shows clearly that smaller ancillary trades were attracted to the area too with blacksmiths, brickworks, foundrys and carpenters and even bootmakers setting up their businesses here or in Redruth. This in turn grew Redruth into a large Market Town. The arrival of the Savings Bank in 1818 along with other banking and financial trades helped to promote Redruth as the 'Mining Capital of West Cornwall' over the next 80 years or so - see the Redruth Town Trail for more details.

The Wheal Tolgus sett lies just southeast of the crossroads at Sparnon Gate. The principal shafts were Horton's, Pryce's and Davey's and was bounded on its eastern flank by Wheal Montague and Treleigh Consols to the south by South Wheal Tolgus. The main workings lay about 400 metres south of the Cornish Arms pub. For a map of this area please click here.

Whilst nearby Camborne produced only copper at this time the Tolgus Mines in conjunction with the mines on North Downs near Treleigh also produced large quantities of tin. From an initial 29 tons of copper ore sold in 1819, Tolgus Downs Mine underwent several changes in its early years, with the mine being renamed Wheal Tolgus in 1823. A lode of high grade ore was discovered a short time later and its quality was such that for a time the mine received almost double the county average of £6.76 a ton for its produce. As the years passed production progressed from shallow working to deep mining via shafts drained by several adits. Like many other mines of this area Wheal Tolgus worked in very wet ground. The mine was dewatered by two 70-inch pumping engines on Davey's and Horton's shafts with another sited on Pryce's shaft - with a 25 inch cylinder. Some time later it was noticed that even these three pumps couldnt keep up with the ingress of water so a further 50-inch pumping engine was purchased.

By late 1833 the deposits of high grade ore were exhausted and the future for the mine looked bleak. The nearly new 50-inch engine was put up for sale in September 1834 and parts of the sett were abandoned. Things did not improve over the next couple of years so the machinery was put up for sale in Spring 1837. According to the excellent Cornwall's Central Mines: The Northern District by Tom Morrison, over 32,000 tons of copper ore was sold between 1819 and 1844 with overall profits of about £50,000. The northern part of the sett worked as Old Tolgus United between 1856 and 1862.

'World Heritage' status has been gained for this area and works should take place in 2008 to connect the mines of Redruth to the Portreath to Devoran (Coast to Coast) Trail via Tolgus. Cornwall in Focus are waiting to see just how the Tolgus mines fit into the mineral tramway framework. See The Mineral Tramway Heritage Project for more details.

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