Former smithy at Wheal Busy, Chacewater, Cornwall

Summary

Former blacksmith's shop and workshop. Built in around 1872 for Wheal Busy mine, possibly incorporating mid-C19 fabric and materials.

Description

Former blacksmith's shop and workshop. Built in around 1872 for Wheal Busy mine, possibly incorporating mid-C19 fabric and materials.

MATERIALS: random rubble-stone construction including Cornish killas with some ore-bearing rock and granite quoins. The smithy has a large and impressive scantle-slate roof, with a stone and red-brick chimney stack. Later alterations and extensive repairs in brick and block-work.

PLAN: the building is rectangular in plan with a small extension with a single-pitch roof structure (roof recently removed) running north-south at the east end.

EXTERIOR: the building is single storey with a hipped roof and a tall off-centre chimney stack with a stone lower stage and red brick above. On the east side there are remnants of a ventilated brickwork course at eaves level. The main elevation faces south and has entrances to the left and right; that to the right has a brick arch and that to the left a late-C20 steel lintel. In between are two window openings and there is a further blocked window on the south elevation of the eastern extension. The east elevation to the extension has doorways to either side and two window openings in between; the return elevation to the north has one window opening. The east elevation of the main building has central timber double-doors with a window opening to their right. Above the double-doors is a cast-iron lintel inscribed GREAT WHEAL BUSY MINES 1872. The north elevation has irregularly-spaced window openings of various sizes, and at the right-hand end is a single doorway. A large opening to the left has a further cast-iron inscribed lintel. The west elevation has a single window opening and the right-hand side of the wall extends to the south; this is all that remains of an extension on this side.

INTERIOR: internally the building comprises two bays formed by a partition wall of rubble stone and the base of the chimney, with the location of the forge and chimney slightly west of the centre. There is a smaller room with rubble-stone walls to the south of the former forge, and a more recent timber-walled room to its north-east. The roof is supported by timber king-post trusses, many of which have visible carpenter’s marks. The floor is formed of packed earth overlaid in places with C20 concrete slabs. The cast-iron lintels to the north and east entrances are also inscribed on their internal faces.

History

Wheal Busy mine is located to the north-west of the village of Chacewater in an area of hard-rock mining activity with a long and varied history. Much has been written about the history of tin and copper mining in Cornwall and the development of Wheal Busy mine within that history has also been well-documented since the C18 (as summarised by Buck (2015) and others). The construction of the smithy at Wheal Busy as part of its final stage of industrial development in the later C19 sits within that context.

Wheal Busy was worked for tin, copper, arsenic and tungsten over three centuries and can be divided into four main periods. The deep parallel mineral lodes in the Scorrier area attracted first tin streaming in the medieval period, followed by copper mining in the early-C18 to mid-C19 in the relentless pursuit of mineral ore. Deep-lode mining changed the character and landscape of the site and much of the county. This in turn had an influence on settlement patterns including villages such as Chacewater which is virtually entirely C19 as a result of the mining boom in the area.

Mining at the site is first recorded in 1666, and in the early C18 John Coster - ‘the father of Cornish copper mining’ - took on a lease at Chacewater Mine, later to become Wheal Busy. Copper was first raised in 1724, and the following year Joseph Hornblower installed the earliest Newcomen engine to assist in draining the mine. In 1758 Borlase noted that Chacewater was one of the most profitable Cornish mines. The good financial health of the mine, profiting from wealthy mining adventurers, ensured development capital which lead to its use as a testing ground for the innovative development of steam-engine pumping technology into the late C18. Following on from the Newcomen engine, in 1775 a Smeaton engine was installed, and then the first Boulton and Watt engine in Cornwall was installed by James Watt himself in 1778. In 1818 700 people were employed at the mine – by then known as ‘Huel Busy’ – and Chacewater village had expanded from a hamlet to a thriving settlement. The mining site was named Wheal Busy in 1823.

From 1842 Wheal Busy mine was abandoned and reopened several times; on reopening in 1872 new equipment was installed, including a 90-inch steam engine from Perran Foundry. However, the mine was again short-lived and due to various factors including insufficient capital to further-develop the underground workings, the mine closed in July 1873. The machinery was auctioned that September. In 1907 the mine was reopened and worked for arsenic. The 1908 Ordnance Survey (OS) (1:2500) map shows that at that time most of the earlier above-ground structures were unroofed or demolished. It was finally closed in 1928. During the Second World War the US Army had a temporary camp at the mine site.

Facilities for the maintenance of machinery and tool manufacture and repair were essential at any mine: a blacksmith shop would have been a component part of the site. An 1813 plan of Wheal Busy shows a smith’s shop and ‘Iron Yard’ located to the east of the engine shaft; to the south were a carpenter’s shop, dressing floors and counting house, surrounded on all sides by other, possibly redundant, shafts. This smithy building is also shown on the 1839 Tithe map but this building was soon replaced with a L-shaped structure, labelled on a plan thought to date to the 1860s as ‘Dry House’ and ‘Pitman’s House’. Probably constructed in 1856 alongside a new engine house when the mine was briefly reopened by a cost-book company (a partnership of adventurers), the L-shaped building is included in undated sectional-like drawings of the structures above the longitudinal sections of the mine. It is likely that part of this building was modified to create the current form of the smithy building in around 1872, when there was further investment in the mine. The north, west and east elevations were all newly-built at this date (possibly reusing material from the earlier building) with substantial cast-iron lintels made at Perran Foundry added on the north and east elevations bearing the inscription ‘Great Wheal Busy Mines 1872’. An arched brick opening on the south elevation may have been incorporated from the earlier C19 L-shaped building. The 1872 smithy building was effectively a small furnace: when the company was wound up in 1873 the auction listing included a 13-inch high-pressure engine, a 10-inch Righby’s patent steam hammer, a saw bench, a blast fan and six forges in the ‘fitting shop’ – this was all equipment from the smithy.

Following this, the smithy building remained on the site alongside the main pumping engine, winding engine, counting house and the stamps engine house, as shown on the 1880 OS map (1:2500). The map shows extensions at its east and west ends and a small yard to the south. By the time of the 1908 OS map the former smithy was the only roofed building still standing at Wheal Busy. In 1961 a measured survey of the smithy was undertaken by three architecture students which provides evidence of how the building looked then. The drawings show the building with a complete roof with clerestories, a ventilated-brickwork course and several chimneys. The cart entrance on the east elevation has been raised since the survey and structural repairs and supports added in several places throughout the building. The former smithy was most recently used as a vehicle-repair workshop.

Reasons for Listing

The former smithy at Wheal Busy, constructed in 1872, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the size of the former smithy is unusual for its type, and the scale of the scantle-slate roof is of particular note;
* for the two inscribed cast-iron lintels forged at the Perran Foundry, of which only five are known to survive;
* the smithy has noticable visual impact within the landscape, particularly with the mine engine house to the north.

Historic interest:

* as part of the optimistic, but ultimately short-lived, later periods of expansion of Wheal Busy mine, one of the oldest and historically-significant mining sites in Cornwall.

Group value:

* with the Wheal Busy mine scheduled monument, the former smithy represents some of the wide range of activities associated with extractive mining in Cornwall.

External Links

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