Building at Harveys Foundry at SW 5578 3706

Details

SW5437 Building at Harvey's Foundry, at
SW 5578 3706
1534- /10/10001

GV II


Foundry.c1825-40, in various stages and with earlier origins. Coursed slatestone rubble with dressed quoins and brick arches; part of hipped slate roof remaining. Stable and cartshed range of local rubble and brick with hipped slate roof and brick stacks. PLAN: rectangular plan with, from left (south east) a granary, machine shop, boiler room and engine room; a boring mill stood further to the north west; a stable range extends to the west at right angles, making an overall T-shaped plan, and was joined to the main block by an extension of c1860. EXTERIOR: Main complex of equal height. 5-storey granary has granite lintel over doorway and segmental brick arches over windows and loft doors; rear (west) is slate-clad with large ground-floor opening. Otherwise of 4 storeys with segmental-arched windows. To centre is furnace hole to left of segmental brick arch to vault with secondary flue hole; semi-circular arched ground-floor openings to rear. Semi-circular brick arch to engine house on right. To extreme right (north west) is buttressed and dressed granite wall with 2 segmental-arched openings and joist holes for former pattern floor, this being the end of the demolished Boring Mill; buttress has brick springers for arch and iron socket for supporting crane rail at north east corner. The stable range is of 2 storeys, with loft openings set above segmental-arched double openings to cartsheds, with wrought-iron fittings to plank double doors, and over segmental-arched stable doors. INTERIOR: heavy beamed floors, with some line shafting and flywheels visible. The basement to the granary has two barrel vaults with granite piers and cast-iron columns to brick vaulting. Engine house has flywheel mark on inner face of north wall, and holes indicating that the beam engine was mounted on a cast-iron entablature (a remarkable arrangement for a Cornish engine house). Archaeological analysis and other information is contained in reports by Ken Brown, 1995, and the Cornwall Archaeological Unit. The stables have retained some softwood trusses. From 1779 Harvey's played a pre-eminent role in the supply of beam engines to the world's mining industry and for large draining projects. By the mid C19 they supplied beam engines to the largest capacity sites in the country (including the grade I listed pumping station at Kew), drainage projects in Europe (eg.Haarlem Meer in Holland) and to mines in Africa, Australia and The Americas. The surviving structure was built during the period of the firm's greatest prosperity from 1825 to 1870 and clearly expresses its role as a manufactury, the principal source of power being a large beam engine which also by virtue of its great size, served as a showpiece engine for visitors to the site. The foundry, therefore played a pivotal role in the context of C19 mining throughout much of the world.


Listing NGR: SW5579737062

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

456871

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Vale, E, The Harveys of Hayle, (1966)

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.