Wheal Owles, Cornwall
Wheal Owles Mine (pronounced 'Oals') lies on the cliffs on the north coast of Cornwall, adjoining Botallack Mine in the St. Just mining area of Penwith.
Wheal Owles was an amalgamation of several smaller and more ancient mines including Wheal Drea, Wheal Edward and Wheal Gendall. 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.
By the late 19th Century work was concentrated on the West Wheal Owles or Cargodna section.
On January 10, 1893, around 40 miners were working in the undersea level of Wheal Owles and some 400 feet below adit level. They accidentally holed into the flooded old workings of Wheal Drea Mine due to errors on existing plans. The miners thought that they were about 40 yards away and quite safe from breaking into the workings of the old mine but were tragically mistaken. They holed into the workings of Wheal Drea at a depth of some 900 feet (148 fathoms) below the surface. The head pressure on this volume of water must have been enormous and the sea thundered into Wheal Owles trapping over 30 men. There were some heroic deeds on that day and some miners were saved by quick thinking of their colleagues but 19 miners and one mine boy were lost.
In 1993 a commemorative plaque was erected as a memorial to those miners lost in the disaster. It proved impossible to recover the bodies and they remain in the flooded workings to this day. The mine closed following the disaster.
In the 1990s the buildings were conserved and consolidated and the mine has appeared briefly in the 1970s and more extensively in the 2015/16 BBC TV / Mammoth Screen Poldark drama series based on the novels of Winston Graham.
Read MoreWheal Owles was an amalgamation of several smaller and more ancient mines including Wheal Drea, Wheal Edward and Wheal Gendall. 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.
By the late 19th Century work was concentrated on the West Wheal Owles or Cargodna section.
On January 10, 1893, around 40 miners were working in the undersea level of Wheal Owles and some 400 feet below adit level. They accidentally holed into the flooded old workings of Wheal Drea Mine due to errors on existing plans. The miners thought that they were about 40 yards away and quite safe from breaking into the workings of the old mine but were tragically mistaken. They holed into the workings of Wheal Drea at a depth of some 900 feet (148 fathoms) below the surface. The head pressure on this volume of water must have been enormous and the sea thundered into Wheal Owles trapping over 30 men. There were some heroic deeds on that day and some miners were saved by quick thinking of their colleagues but 19 miners and one mine boy were lost.
In 1993 a commemorative plaque was erected as a memorial to those miners lost in the disaster. It proved impossible to recover the bodies and they remain in the flooded workings to this day. The mine closed following the disaster.
In the 1990s the buildings were conserved and consolidated and the mine has appeared briefly in the 1970s and more extensively in the 2015/16 BBC TV / Mammoth Screen Poldark drama series based on the novels of Winston Graham.
