Summary
New Consols is a C19 to mid-C20 poly-metallic mine producing a range of ores including copper, lead, silver, arsenic and tin in addition to small quantities of gold. The site is split in two by a main road with mining, including the Philips Shaft engine house, concentrated to the north and a substantial dressing floor, laid out around a river valley which runs east to west, and associated structures to the south.
Reasons for Designation
The C19 to mid-C20 New Consols Mine is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: a site with an unusually complete set of structures and features that relate both to the dressing floor and the ore source which make an important contribution to our overall understanding of the working of the mine over various phases of occupation;
* Rarity: a good example of both common and rare mining features reflecting the development of the industry over time;
* Diversity: the site retains a diverse range of features representing the complete extraction process;
* Documentary Evidence: the site has been subjected to detailed historic analysis and a number of historic maps and surveys exist which document the development of the various phases of this mine works;
* Potential: the diverse range of components represented at New Consols have the potential to explain the development of the mine working and its chronological range, as well as contribute to the understanding of the historical and technological development of copper, tin and arsenic mining in the Cornwall and West Devon Mining industry;
* Group Value: the scheduled remains of the New Consols site have strong group value with the associated listed mine buildings within the scheduled area and, further afield an arsenic chimney to the south.
History
For several millennia the western part of the South West Peninsula, namely Cornwall and West Devon, has been one of the major areas of non-ferrous metal mining in England. During the post-medieval period, with the depletion of surface deposits, stream working gradually gave way to shaft mining as the companion to open working methods. Whilst mining technology itself altered little, there were major advances in ore processing and smelting technologies. The C18 saw technological advances turning to the mining operations themselves. During this period, Cornish-mined copper dominated the market, although it was by then sent out of the region for smelting. The development of steam power for pumping, winding and ore processing in the earlier C19 saw a rapid increase in scale and depth of mine shafts.
Correspondingly, ore processing increased in scale, resulting in extensive dressing floors and mills by late in the C19. Technological innovation is especially characteristic of both mining and processing towards the end of the century. In West Cornwall, these innovations relate chiefly to tin production, in East Cornwall and West Devon to copper. Arsenic extraction also evolved rapidly during the C19 adding a further range of distinctive processing and refining components at some mines; the South West became the world's main producer in the late C19. From the 1860s, the mining industries began to decline due to competition with cheaper sources of copper and tin ore from overseas, leading to a major economic collapse and widespread mine closures in the 1880s, although limited ore-extraction and spoil reprocessing continued into the C20.
There is historical information which suggests that some tin mining occurred in the area of New Consols Mine prior to 1542 continuing into the post-medieval period, probably focussed on alluvial and alluvial stream work running parallel to the Luckett stream; however the area appears to have reverted to coppiced woodland in the mid-late C18.
Mining is understood to have been taking place at Luckett by around the 1760s at which time copper was the principal product. Eastward extensions of the principal ore body, Main Lode, were later exploited with great success at Devon Great Consols, some 3km away, on the eastern bank of the River Tamar. The mine was poly-metallic, producing a range of ores including copper, lead, silver, arsenic and tin in addition to small quantities of gold. Mining at Luckett progressed under a succession of different names throughout the C19 and chronologically these are Great Wheal Martha, New Wheal Martha and New Great Consols. Great Wheal Martha commenced operations before 1844 and continued until 1857 when the New Great Consols Mining Company Ltd was established. In 1867, it amalgamated with the West Great Consols to form the New Consols Tin and Arsenic Works and in 1874 it changed to the New Great Consols Silver and Arsenic Works Limited, which continued to operate until mounting debts and an associated petition to the Vice-Warden of the Stannary Parliament forced closure in 1877. The mine was abandoned until World War I when waste dumps were briefly reworked. In 1946 a new company, New Consols, refurbished the mine and produced tin and tungsten until it too closed in 1953.
A range of mine-related structures survive with most dating from the two main production phases, the mid- to late C19 and the final 1946 to 1953 working. From the former period, two beam engine houses with the footings of a third, three shafts, a row of calciners with associated flues, and an arsenic grinder house and chimney survive, all dating from when the mine was producing mainly arsenic with some copper and silver. The site is distinguished in having three types of furnaces working concurrently in the C19: reverberatory, Hocking and Oxland Tube, and Bruntons. Historic maps indicate that a complex arrangement of leats, stone culverts, arsenic flues and ore tramways crossed the site which were remodelled as the need arose. Significant remains of the flue systems survive around the row of tin claciners and water-powered Brunton rotary calciners used for separating arsenic from tin and copper (listed at Grade II). The arsenic chimney associated with the Brunton calciners is thought to be the earliest of three associated with the mine. The others, sited some 715m and 770m to the south and outside this site, were constructed to discharge toxic fumes away from the village following an incident in 1872, when escaping flue gases caused the temporary closure of the village school. Fragmentary remains of this later interconnecting flue can be seen adjoining the field boundary that borders the western side of the Luckett-Monkscross road, to the south of this site.
Details
New Consols Mine is a large mining complex the scheduling of which is split into two separate areas of protection. The northern area is focused around the Philips Shaft and includes surface remains and buried feature relating to the mine’s ore source. It is centred at grid reference SX3873073797 and covers an area of approximately 4830 metres squared. The southern site consists of the dressing floor, and includes a wide range of surface and buried remains related to the dressing process. It is centred at grid reference SX3868573503 and measures up to approximately 560m in length and 210m wide.
The northern area is the location of Philips Shaft and was the ore source for New Consols. The engine house (listed at Grade II) is the most prominent feature in this landscape. It dates from 1859 when the 50-inch engine was relocated to the site from Wheal Venton at St Ives. This engine was replaced in 1867 by an elderly 80-inch, formerly of Holmbush Mine, Callington, which necessitated extensive modification of the house; the walls were heightened, the width of the building increased and the bob wall thickened to allow the beam to be located nearer to the shaft. The house retains some if its timber roof structure but all machinery has been removed. The boiler chimney is integral to the south-west corner of the engine house; the boiler house itself is no longer extant but is shown on Ordnance Survey maps circa 1880 to have abutted the southern elevation of the engine house. Towards the south is a timber-framed and corrugated iron-clad mine office building, accessed via steps from the track way leading to the shaft upslope. The legend ’Mine Office’ is discernable under a porch attached to the southern elevation. Narrow-gauge tram rails are in situ to the immediate south of the shaft which linked the shaft collar to the site of the ore bin and primary crushing plant originally situated on the high ground above the road to Treovis Mill. The C20 concrete block ore bin and lorry loading point are located at the south end of this area, next to the road. Ore was initially taken from the bin to the 1946 dressing floors, circa 450m to the south, by lorries, but this practice was superseded by an aerial ropeway system in 1949. A waste dump is extant a few metres south-west of the engine house which appears to date from the C20 reworking.
The area to the south of the main road contains the remains of the dressing floor and includes a complex series of features which largely date from the mid-C19 through to the mid-C20 and reflect the wide variety of ore extraction processes which took place on this site over time. Towards the northern end of this part of the site is a stream that runs in a stone-built culvert; the dressing floors were sited to either side of the stream and were adapted and extended during different phases of activity. The mine's main drainage adit is also thought to have its portal along this length of culvert though this could not be confirmed. An open portal is visible in the hillside, however, circa 30m to the north-west of a crusher engine house and is most likely to be associated with the mid-C20 reworking of the sett. Extensive mine waste dumping took place in the area bordering the valley stream and these dumps were themselves the focus of brief reworking during the First World War. A further adit portal, also possibly C20, is located circa 70m south-east of the crusher engine house.
A rectangular roofless structure on the southern edge of the unclassified, east to west running, main road is a miner’s dry and is recorded on both the 1880 and 1907 Ordnance Survey mapping; originally single-storey, its walls have largely been reduced in height. East of the miner’s dry and to the north of the stream is a Cornish engine house (listed at Grade II), built in 1871, which contained a 28 inch engine that powered the copper crushers; the crusher houses themselves which are no longer extant were located on either side. The engine originally installed is unusual in that it survived on site for some 60 years after it last worked, only being scrapped in 1938. A rendered C20 concrete block explosives magazine survives circa 80m south-west of the crusher engine house, adjacent to the remains of two C19 calciners.
The 1880 Ordnance Survey mapping depicts a tramway which originally linked the crushers to a calciner building circa 45m to the south-west and a battery of Cornish stamps, circa 150m to the south. The Cornish stamps battery originally supplied a yard containing twelve buddles. Both the associated engine house and its chimney were demolished in 1968. Some walling survives of the engine house as does the capped collar of the shaft; the iron fishplates of the original timber pump rod are visible, extending through the rail sleeper capping. To the north of the stamp yard lies the remains of a circa 1920s wheelpit and tailrace.
To the west of the stamp yard are the remains of various structures which were installed in the late C19 to facilitate the extraction of arsenic from the tin and copper ore. The included a row of calciners, of which the surviving structures include tin (Reverberatory), and water-powered Brunton rotary calciners, built for the extraction of arsenic (listed at Grade II). The arsenic flues and labryrinths were connected to the calciners and terminated at a discharge chimney (listed at Grade II). Water to power the rotating hearths of the calciners was provided by a leat which entered the site to their immediate west. The rectangular two-storey roofed stone building immediately south of the Brunton calciners was used as an arsenic grinder.
The period 1946 to 1953 saw the last reworking of the mine, and for this a new dressing floor complex was constructed further to the south utilising twenty heads of Californian stamps understood to have been acquired from Prince of Wales Mine, Harrowbarrow - these being subsequently replaced by ball mills. A large concrete block treatment mill building was constructed to house this equipment and one high wall and substantial machine bases are extant, the latter to support the stamps batteries/ball mills and shaking tables employed. Water for the mill was provided by a leat and purpose-built reservoir, the latter no longer extant, with water from this being pumped upslope to the new complex. A substantial gulley connects the eastern end of the leat channel with an open shaft, the latter presumably dating from the C19; it is shown on the 1880 Ordnance Survey mapping. These features together are thought to have formed a spillway, improvised to return unused water to the valley stream via underground levels and an adit portal at approximately SX3881273659, within the river's southern bank.
EXCLUSIONS
All of the listed buildings are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground them beneath is included. All modern fencing, safety barriers, gates, gate fittings, waymarkers and the vehicular access blocking rocks, are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath these features is included. The Nissen Hut and timber-framed shelter building attached to the north side of the Philips Engine house are also excluded, although again the ground beneath is included.
The boundary stone wall to Pengarret, which is attached to the concrete ore bin to the south of the Philips Engine house, is not included in the scheduling.
