Description

SW 52 NE GERMOE TRESOWES GREEN

6/233 Engine house and attached boiler
house at SW594290 Wheal Grey

GV II

Disused engine house and attached boiler house and other adjoining structures. Circa 1897. Granite rubble with dressed granite quoins and jambstones, brick arches.
Plan: rectangular engine house with bob wall and shaft at north; adjoining lean-to boiler house along east side and extending to the south; wall parallel to boiler house wall extending in front of the left hand side of the south wall of the engine house: small square plan building south of this and attached to the north end of the boiler house by a screen wall is a pair of buttressed parallel whim bearing walls, at right angles to the shaft. Within the boiler house are 2 long masonry lined trenches and within the building south of the engine house are several bearing walls with iron bolts for former machinery. In front of the 'plug' doorway of the engine house are 2 bearing walls at right angles to the shaft. Machinery, floors and roofs removed. 3 storeys over basement pit. Round-headed openings.
Engine house: opening to each floor of the south gable and 2 openings in the bob wall (now one opening as the lintel and masonry between has fallen). Ground floor opening to each side (wing) wall. The east wall opening is a doorway with another small opening above and to the left. There is a large complete cross beam in situ.
Boiler house: round arched 'lunette' opening at the south end; doorway with window over at the north end. Blocked doorway in west wall. Built for a 36-inch cylinder beam pumping engine which had been converted from a rotative engine. Originally built by the Charlestown Foundry for Polgooth mine in the 1840s later used as a stamps engine. Finally scrapped in 1935.
This engine house and its associated structures is one of the most complete examples in Cornwall. The surviving bearing walls for the former complex arrangement of whim and other machinery are particularly interesting.
Sources : Kenneth Brown, Council member of the Trevithick Society.

Listing NGR: SW5949329067

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26435011

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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