Wheal Owles
Wheal Owles Mine (pronounced 'Oals') is located on the cliffs on the north coast of Cornwall, about a mile and a half northeast of Cape Cornwall in the St. Just mining area of north Penwith district. The mine is thought to have been an amalgamation of several smaller and more ancient mines including Wheal Drea, Wheal Edward and Wheal Gendall.
To the southwest lies the area worked by Boswedden Mine whilst to the northeast lies the sett of Botallack Mines including the Crowns Mine, Parknoweth, Wheal Chase and Wheal Hen.
There is known to have been a mine in this general area from the 1700's but Wheal Owles' best years were during the decade 1860-70. Wheal Owles continued working until January 10, 1893. On that date about 40 miners were working in the undersea levels of Wheal Owles and some 400 feet below adit level when they accidentally holed into the flooded old workings of Wheal Drea Mine. The inundation resulted in twenty fatalities. None of the bodies were recovered and the mine never reopened.
In the 1960s when I was around 7 or 8 and already had a developing interest in Cornish Mining my mother took me for a walk around this site. Neither my mother nor myself had any knowledge of the disaster and I was quite happy to explore. However, for some inexplicable reason my mother urged me to leave and she hurried me away, later informing me she had a really bad feeling about the place and just wanted to get away. A few years later, in my early teens I read a history of mines in the area and found out about the Wheal Owles Disaster. Now I can’t say I felt anything peculiar about the site in the 1960s as a child nor on subsequent visits I have made from time to time. However, my mother still recalls the incident and her urge to get away quickly.
Today Wheal Owles has become to familiar to TV viewers across the globe appearing briefly in the 1970s BBC TV Poldark series and more recently in the series reboot which commenced in 2015.
Filming for the 2016 series has already commenced with scenes around the mine being shot in September 2015. It is surprising what a little camera trickery, computer graphics and some wooden props can do to turn this mine into Ross Poldark’s “Wheal Leisure”. However by the time by the time I visited on October 25, 2015 all signs of the props had completely disappeared.
Read MoreTo the southwest lies the area worked by Boswedden Mine whilst to the northeast lies the sett of Botallack Mines including the Crowns Mine, Parknoweth, Wheal Chase and Wheal Hen.
There is known to have been a mine in this general area from the 1700's but Wheal Owles' best years were during the decade 1860-70. Wheal Owles continued working until January 10, 1893. On that date about 40 miners were working in the undersea levels of Wheal Owles and some 400 feet below adit level when they accidentally holed into the flooded old workings of Wheal Drea Mine. The inundation resulted in twenty fatalities. None of the bodies were recovered and the mine never reopened.
In the 1960s when I was around 7 or 8 and already had a developing interest in Cornish Mining my mother took me for a walk around this site. Neither my mother nor myself had any knowledge of the disaster and I was quite happy to explore. However, for some inexplicable reason my mother urged me to leave and she hurried me away, later informing me she had a really bad feeling about the place and just wanted to get away. A few years later, in my early teens I read a history of mines in the area and found out about the Wheal Owles Disaster. Now I can’t say I felt anything peculiar about the site in the 1960s as a child nor on subsequent visits I have made from time to time. However, my mother still recalls the incident and her urge to get away quickly.
Today Wheal Owles has become to familiar to TV viewers across the globe appearing briefly in the 1970s BBC TV Poldark series and more recently in the series reboot which commenced in 2015.
Filming for the 2016 series has already commenced with scenes around the mine being shot in September 2015. It is surprising what a little camera trickery, computer graphics and some wooden props can do to turn this mine into Ross Poldark’s “Wheal Leisure”. However by the time by the time I visited on October 25, 2015 all signs of the props had completely disappeared.
