Wheal Roots underground Mine Workings, Bronze Age Monument & Gardens.

The Trenear Mortar Outcrop is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is unique being the only such monument in the entire South West of England.

Formed from a living granite outcrop some 290 million years old. The granite here is the oldest in Cornwall being some 20 million years earlier than the remainder and is part of the Carnmenellis Pluton.

This Monument Stone serves to confirm the great antiquity and national importance of the location. We call this our TIN HENGE which is attributed to the later Bronze Age.

The unusual monument sits in a landscaped exclusion zone which is fitting to its global significance. This was completed at the end of the 2019 summer season. Two large granite boundary stones have been found and are placed nearby. These are both engraved with the letter T which is the mark for the former Trevalis Estate of the Hocking family former owners of the Tin Stamps until 1883.

The massive granite stones acting as seats together with the many granite stones now surrounding the monument are all from East Wheal Bassett Engine & boiler House which were kindly given to the museum in 2017.

TIME LINE



The River Cober alluvial deposits contained the tin ore Cassiterite [tin oxide]. The river rises near Nine Maidens flowing via Burras under the B2397 Redruth to Helston road and meanders through the valley to Porkellis Moor just over one mile upstream from Trenear. The river becomes faster when joined by the water from Medlyn Moor until it rushes through the grounds of the mine for about one third of a mile. The water raised from the mine is circa 25 million gallons a year, this joins the river from the outflow of our pumps.

The river then flows through Coverack Bridges towards Helston and eventually into the Loe Pool which is the largest natural freshwater lake in Cornwall and is by the sea close to Porthleven. The Wendron Water Works takes water from the river to supply drinking water to Helston & the Wendron area. Some water is supplied to the open street channels in Helston, known as The Kennels which are a feature of the Stannery Town.

At Lower Trenear [the Poldark Mine of today] the valley narrows and the richest tin deposits were found in the floodplain of the river under other deposited layers, sometimes up to twelve feet deep. The working of this tin is known as Tin Streaming The ore recovered from the river was pounded on the mortar stone so that the heavier black tin crystals could be panned out by a process known as vanning by the skilful use of a very wide and flat shovel. The artists impression shows an early form of wooden framed oblong buddle for washing the unwanted waste as it might have appeared in ancient times. A buddle is a shallow wooden inclined container in which ore is washed, in more recent times these would often be circular and made from wood or concrete.

From the Bronze Age to modern times.....

2000 - 1600 BC

The Trenear Mortar Granite Outcrop is a Bronze-Age Scheduled Ancient Monument of National importance [No. 1021409] located within the grounds of Poldark Mine. The northern flood plain of the River Cober, which flows for a quarter of a mile through part of the grounds, is where the mortar outcrop sits. The stone is believed to have been used during the latter half of the prehistoric period (approximately 2000 BC to 43 AD) to grind alluvial tin ore (cassiterite Sn02) to fine sand before smelting. The heavier tin crystals were vanned out with water [rather like gold panning] and then smelted in primitive furnaces using charcoal.

1660 BC - 1324 AD No detailed records have been found for this period but there are no less than three quite large well-used granite mortar stones on display from medieval times - believed to date from the 5th to 13th century, they were found in the grounds during early excavations and were undoubtedly used to pulverise alluvial tin ore using a bully stone as a pestle. Inaccessible parts of the outer areas of the mine show evidence of ancient workings that are believed to be medieval.

1284 .... Friday the 15th of September. The monks at the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary at Rewley in Oxford were given the advowson of St Wendron church & its chapels confirmed by way of a Royal Charter or Inspeximus of that date by Edmund Earl of Cornwall with its Great Tithes and glebe lands - that was over 730 years ago. This date was Marco Polos 30th birthday! This is recorded in the village church close to the mine. Edmund was the son of Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall and grandson of King John. Before this St Wendrona Church had belonged to his Manor of Helston which included the whole parish. The ancient Wendron village church is on a hill overlooking the mine at Trenere Wolas, (Lower Trenere} the Trenear of today. Its tower can be clearly seen from the tea garden & lawns which were tin dressing floors from circa 1300 to 1871. The ancient bells of the church ring out for all to hear. A record of tithes relating to the use of the waterwheels exists in Wendron parish records.

1354 .... Edward the Black Prince [1330 - 1376] added the advowson of lands at Stithians and its church to the monks at Rewley Abbey and this was approved by the bishop in 1354, almost 700 years ago.

1300 - 1400 .... The waterways in the valley that flow through the grounds had been created by the early to mid 1400s or perhaps during the late 1200s, most probably by the Cistercian Monks themselves. The waterways remain to this day, the tail race ponds and leats now form part of our pleasant gardens.

The Cistercian Monks certainly controlled and may well have operated the tin stamps & blowing house in the 1300s, into the early 1400s - the Cistercians from the mother Abbey* in France were renowned metal workers and hydraulic experts from early times. An ancient system of waterways and water wheels exists at a Cistercian Abbey in Spain.

*Cîteaux Abbey is the mother abbey and was founded on Saint Benedicts Day, 21 March 1098. The abbey is at Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux, south of Dijon, France. Today it belongs to the Trappists, or Cistercians of the Strict Observance

Wikipedia tells us:

The Cistercian order was quite innovative in developing techniques of hydraulic engineering for monasteries established in remote valleys. In Spain, one of the earliest surviving Cistercian houses, the Real Monasterio de Nuestra Senora de Rueda in Aragon, is a good example of such early hydraulic engineering, using a large waterwheel for power and an elaborate water circulation system for central heating.

Much of this practicality in Cistercian architecture, and indeed in the construction itself, was made possible by the orders own technological inventiveness. The Cistercians are known to have been skilled metallurgists, and as the historian Alain Erlande-Brandenburg writes: The quality of Cistercian architecture from the 1120s onwards is related directly to the Orders technological inventiveness.

They placed importance on metal, both the extraction of the ore and its subsequent processing. At the abbey of Fontenay the forge is not outside, as one might expect, but inside the monastic enclosure: metalworking was thus part of the activity of the monks and not of the lay brothers.

1493 ....Stampyng mylls de Trenere Wolas.. In 1493 a written renewal of a lease for the mill, waterwheels and leats was granted to a private individual by the Duchy of Cornwall. This man was John Trerys a freeman, the title to the lands having changed. The simply detailed lease is contained in the Royal Assession Records of the Dukedom at Buckingham Gate in London. The rent was 3s 4d per annum and included a water course, drainage channel,a fish trap, and a separate lease for a grain mill in same building sharing the water. Trenear Stamping Mill is thus the earliest recorded water-powered tin stamps in the world. The Rewley Abbey records for the previous 200 years were lost at the time of the dissolution in 1539.

1500 ... The mill equipment appears to have been renewed according to the historian the late Dr Hamilton Jenkin. One of his much prized books Wendron Tin, was published by Wendron Forge sponsored by Peter Young the founder of the museum.

1536 - 1539 .... King Henry VIII was the patron of Rewley Abbey & its Studium but even it too was dissolved in 1539. The last abbot was Abbot Nicholaus Austen, early in 1536 he tried unsuccessfully to buy off the dissolution by offering £100 to Thomas Cromwell in the hope of keeping it or making it a college but he was pensioned off with £22 and wisely made an immediate move to study at Trinity Hall in Cambridge - so was clearly respected. [Other abbots were not as fortunate and of those who protested, most were horrifically executed as traitors or treated very badly] Little of St Marys Abbey exists today except for a wall and gateway close to Oxford railway station. The road is still called Rewley Road.

1649 .... Henry Leonard was renting the stamping mill for 3s 4d a year, a corn mill and a blowing house, all at Trenere Wolas - the Trenear of today. During the Commonwealth a survey was undertaken and at that time there were many workers here at Trenear working the waterwheels and tin dressing operations. The rent was still only 3s 4d per annum. [17p today]This use continued until the the early 1870s

1715(?) to 1800 (?) Huel Roots mine was in production operated by a horse whim. John Wesley preached in Wendron and visited Porkellis to preach too. He would have ridden on horseback past the mine & water operated tin stamps here, our Cornish dry stone Hedge is around 800 years old and borders the laneway to this day.

1854 ... In 1854, exactly 500 years after being given by the Black Prince to the Cistercian monks at Oxford, a lease of lands that included the waterways, leat, waterwheels and the tin dressing grounds, was granted by the successor in title to the dissolved abbey lands - a Mr Thomas Hocker of Stithians to a Mr Frederick Hill, a solicitor from Helston, who also owned [with others] the two adjoining Wendron Consols mines [one past the upper end of our present day car park, and the other on the opposite side of the B3297 road to Redruth above the Wendron or Trenear smithy], the rent agreed was £50 a year. Mr Hocker was in his eighties and died 6 months later, he is buried at Stithians where his monument can be seen close to the church door. The lease relates in part to the four or five acres that are the gardens and car park of today. Mr Hills letter describes the condition of the water wheels at that time as only fit for a Christmas fire!

1859 ... The Wendron Consols Festival .... a gathering of over 700 people on a Wendron Festival in the grounds of the three mines was recorded in detail in the local newspaper. The Wendron Consols Festival was a popular annual event, according to this remarkable report in the West Briton newspaper in September 1859 - 162 years ago in 2021

From the church a procession was formed, comprising the agents and persons employed in the mine, with their families and, preceded by the Porkellis Band, they marched to the Account House, where tables were laid and nearly 700 persons sat down. A happier party can scarcely be imagined – there sat the miner with his goodly wife and healthy children – the fine muscular sumpman – the intelligent tributor, and the bold tut worker, with many a fair bal maiden and those who constitute the stamps pare – all looked grateful and pleased, and even the babe seemed to enjoy the festival by crowing in its mother’s arms. After partaking of excellent cake and tea, the grace and doxology were sung, and the band played for some time.

The festival concluded with the Flora Dance, when a party comprising many of the youth and beauty of Wendron and Helston danced around the mine. A bonfire and tar barrels lit up the barren moor, and thus terminated a day which afforded great delight to the interested assembly. Refreshments were prepared in the Account House for the wives and daughters of the adventurers and their families.

1864 ... In 1864, the two Wendron Consols mines sold 117 tons of black tin for just over £7,000. It had a workforce of 184 men, 61 women and 50 boys. All of the women and younger children were employed above ground in dressing & sorting the tin ores in what are the mine gardens of today

1871 .... Tin prices had fallen and the two Wendron Consols mines closed as did the tin dressing floors, the tin stamps mill and the blowing house operated for another 5 years under the ownership of Mr C C Hocking who eventually sold to Trenear Dairy.

1871 - 1875 Wheal Lovell took a tenancy of the stamps but that mine closed a few years later - probably circa 1875.

1885 ..... January 18th 1885 ..... The following advertisement appeared in the newspaper -

DESIRABLE FREEHOLD TENEMENT AND VALUABLE WATER RIGHTS FOR SALE .... Mr C C HOCKING will SELL by AUCTION at the New Inn, Wendron Churchtown, on Thursday 29th day of January instant at Three p.m., all that TENEMENT situate at Trenear, in the parish of Wendron, consisting of Two Meadows and a Garden, and the Stamps plot with the Water Rights thereto belonging, known as

TRENEAR STAMPS.

The meadows are let for a term of 14 years from Michaelmas, 1877; possession of the stamps plot and water rights can be taken on completion.

The water rights are most valuable, and when occupied by the Wendron Consols Mine worked 24 heads of stamps. For further particulars apply to the Auctioneers, Helston; or to Mr. J. WALKER TYACKE. Solicitor, Helston. (

Mr Charles Courtney Hocking was an alderman and a Justice of the Peace, he was the grandson or other descendant of the late Thomas Hocking who had died in 1855.

Charles died in 1907 and his obituary recorded that he was an Alderman of foremost and most respected inhabitants, and died at his residence Thursday morning the age of 63. Mr. Hocking was a native of Manaccan and had been seriously ill for some time.

1885 .... January 29th 1885 ...The result of the auction was that the Tin Stamps, buildings, two meadows and a garden were purchased freehold with the water rights, by what became the Trenear Dairy.

1896-1897 ... The Trenear Dairy doubled the size of the tin stamps by adding a second matching block .... the date 1897 was placed on the front of the structure.

The waterwheels and Tin stamps had been taken over by the Trenear Dairy Company who used one of the original four water wheels and its waterways until 1972, the mill was extended on one side and the resulting double-gabled dairy building was dated 1897. Butter and cream were produced, clotted cream and milk was processed - the dairy using the power of the water wheel which had a generator attached. Eggs were also packed.

1928..... The waterwheel was repaired by the village Wheelwright Mr Joe Faull and his father, the wheel at that time had no less than 60 buckets and was far larger than the present wheel. The axle bearing position of that larger wheel can be seen in the stonework. The launder was replaced as was the diversionary launder over a mile away up on Porkellis Moor. We have four pages of accurate manuscript measurements and other details in the museum archive as a record book was recently discovered. The collection of machines and tools from the Wheelwrights Shop is now a dedicated exhibition in the garden.

1938 ... The incoming milk record ledger for the year 1938 to September 1939 was found in the attics during 2015. This volume lists all of the local farmers with precise details of their daily milk production and the amounts paid per gallon.

1966.... In 1966 Peter Brigham Young [the founder of what is the Poldark Mine, Gardens & Museum of today] acquired the freehold of the village forge for £100 and some marshland which is now the lower pond and leat area around the mine entrance. He had already started to collect machinery from many places around the UK and thus created what was to become one of the very first Industrial Heritage Collections in Great Britain, before that term was coined. Peter called it the Cornish Heritage Collection. Today its known as The Cornish National Heritage Collection.

1971 ... Peter Young and his wife Jose opened the lower part of the gardens to the public on June 1st 1971 as Wendron Forge, their elder daughter Carol Young recalled that no one attended on that very first day! Around this time the present car park was purchased and included the Bronze-Age Trenear Mortar Stone, now a Scheduled Ancient Monument to alluvial tin working.

1972 ..... The Trenear Dairy closed and was sold to a furniture warehouse. Peter tried to buy the Dairy and old mill, but the price was inflated. A few years later in 1978 Peter Young was able to secretly purchase the former Trenear Dairy land and the old mill building through a company he had formed in London. The purchase was at a rather more advantageous price. This enabled the two separate land holdings to be joined together again much as they were before the 1850s.

1972 ... In the winter of 1972-1973 the Greensplat Cornish Beam Engine was moved 30 miles to Trenear and erected here. This ambitious feat was done with the help of a team of volunteers and cost a great deal of money at the time, the move alone was £8,000 - a great sum of money in 1972. This engine was the very last to have worked in commercial service which was to Christmas week 1959 beating all other similar claims by some five years. It had been built by Harvey of Hayle for the Bunny Tin mine circa 1846 a rotative whim engine and moved in the 1880s to Greensplat. It was converted to the Cornish cycle and used as a pumping engine.

1973 At Trenear (Wendron Forge) SW 68273157 a blocked Cornish Hull was discovered by Peter Young in the hillside. It had a natural granite entrance and was in the woodland escarpment. 1973 ... Wendron Forge staged a Brass on the Grass concert, which is a phrase Peter Young appears to have coined. Attended by the Mayor of Helston and the Chairman of Cornwall Council with the Band of the Royal Marines and Mousehole Male Voice Choir.

1974 ... The ancient Hwel Roots tin mine [which has very early, probably medieval, workings not seen on the educational tours of today] was accidentally re-discovered by Peter Young in 1973, an access tunnel was driven at a cost of £75,000 [an enormous sum at that time with an inflation value of well over £700,000 today] and with much clearance being done by a team of volunteers, a more substantial section of the 18th century parts of the mine was opened to the public in 1974 as Wheal Roots Mine.

1974 BBC television cameras arrived to film sequences for the new Poldark costume drama which became an instant success. [see below 1975 & 1977]

1975 ..... Wheal Roots was re-named as The Poldark Mine by the author Winston Graham OBE who had become good friends with Peter and Jose Young the founders of the museum. That friendship between the Young family and Winston Graham continued down the years and some of Winston Grahams books were launched at the mine, including his final work in 2002.

1976 A rare George V Post Box was installed in an underground chamber on level 1 in the mine by the Helston General Post Office. This is believed to be the very first GPO mail box officially installed in a private location, and the first underground mailbox anywhere. It dates from 1932 when it was cast by Derby Castings Ltd in Derby and is believed to have been at Helston Railway Station until 1966. When first installed it was emptied by the local GPO postmen but soon this duty was delegated to the mine guides and instead the Royal Mail postmen collected the mail each day from the mine office. The postbox is still in use on a daily basis and cards posted underground are marked with a special cancellation that is unique in the UK.

Wendron Forge was the trading name of the workshops set up by the Youngs where they employed local craftsmen to make clocks, stainless steel plaques and a variety of seats and other wooden items. Examples remain here to this day and several of the stainless steel plaques are on display. Profits were used to buy land and in 1975/6 to make new passageways to open more of the mine with the help of a team of friends and volunteers.

1977 ... POLDARK MINE ..... BBC Television cameras returned for the second time and filmed underground and other sequences in the mine grounds for their long running popular Poldark Costume Drama series in 1977 following the success of the earlier production. Another period costume series called Penmarric used the mine as a location.

1979 ... The historic Holman Bros Museum Collection in Camborne was given to Peter Young for just £1 and all came to Poldark Mine to create a very special museum. The core of this important and historic collection remains the nucleus of the Museum to this day, the company had been founded in 1803.

1983 ... a second exit passageway was driven to facilitate an extended circular underground tour around this time. The cost was over £85,000, [£280,000 today] clearance work continued to be carried out by volunteers and the loan was paid off from the sale of clocks and plaques.

1983 ... The band of the Royal Marines performed a Brass on the Grass concert at the mine to celebrate the birthday of Peter Youngs father.

1985 ... The family of a Mr John McLeod leased the sales showroom at Poldark Mine from the Young family for £21,187 per annum from 11th November.

1989 Peter and Jose Young retired to live in Spain. John McLeod and his brother took over from the Young family. He had been working with them for some years as a tenant operator of the sales showroom and later the bar & restaurant.

John was a builder and he continued to maintain and invest in the mine. He financed the blasting of a further deep inclined passageway to improve the circular tour, this decline is a staircase driven through solid rock deep below the surface is used today to exit from the very deepest parts of the mine [4 Level] open to the public. Volunteers continued to assist with these works. Unfortunately John ran out of money during the recession some 10 years later and his building form collapsed, consequently the mine & museum went into administration. All debts were settled and the entire museum collection was handed over intact to new owners.

1999 ... The museum & Mine changed hands and sadly a 14 year run down commenced, including an immediate sell-off of machinery & many other items from the collection. This meant that much of the working machinery collected by Peter Young, his friends and volunteers was removed or sold off for personal gain. Virtually all working machinery apart from the Cornish beam engine was sold. The museum lost its direction as many visitors regularly came to see the working machinery of bygone years.

2002 ... Winston Graham OBE published his very last Poldark book, No 12 in the series, Bella Poldark. The official public launch was held in the mine gardens in 2002 when he was 94 years of age. BBC TV & BBC Radio Cornwall attended with hundreds of visitors, members of the Poldark Appreciation Society and the press. Sadly Mr Graham died in the following year.

2006 ... Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape was inscribed by UNESCO as A World Heritage Site, Poldark Mine & Grounds being part of that inscription in the Carnmenellis Pluton, the oldest granite in Cornwall being some 20 million years earlier than all of the other granite in Cornwall. Poldark Mine is designated as the Interpretation centre for the Wendron Mining District and is AREA 4 of the 10 districts. The Wendron Mining District is now a rural sparsely populated area but was once extensively occupied with well over 60 mines and 65 tin stream workings. The population was around 9,000 during the peak years before 1800. Many were tin miners, tin dressers, bal maidens and tin streamers together with their families & associated workers. Wendron district had more people than the towns of Camborne & Redruth combined.

2009 ... The Trenear Mortar Outcrop was designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument No 36032. The mortar outcrop at Trenear, 9m north east of Poldark Mine entrance is the only known example of an early hand tin-crushing site in the South West of England. The monument includes a large earth fast slab of granite with at least 17 circular or oval shaped hollows, here argued to have been ore-grinding mortars, worn into its upper face. The location lies within the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, site No. 17. The mortar outcrop is situated on the northern edge of the floodplain associated with the River Cober.

2013 .... Rhys Cazenove unveiled a brass tablet to the memory of his mother, Lady McAlpine, better known as Angharad Rees who played Demelza Poldark in the original BBC TV series. Angharad loved this place and was a regular visitor to the mine down the years, and popped in quite close to the end of her life, which had sadly ended rather too soon in 2012. The memorial plaque can be seen during the mine tour.

2013 .... Following 14 years of decline and neglect, apart from one or two brighter moments, the mine & museum closed at the end of September 2013 and went into receivership. Many items were taken away from the museum, the offices were ransacked, historic and other records were pillaged by the directors.

2014 ... In May 2014 a heritage orientated individual took over under licence from the Administration. All amusements and other play areas were immediately removed and the mine reverted to an historic underground educational mine tour with a new museum becoming known as The Cornish National Heritage Collection.

June 2014, following costly underground repairs the mine and museum reopened under new direction with a firm Cultural Heritage Management policy following the bankruptcy. Many former guides, workers and volunteers returned to the fold as the restoration commenced with some vigour.

In June 2014 Bristol based Mammoth Films on behalf of BBC Television filmed the underground sequences of the new series of Poldark on location in the mine. The sale of the mine to the new philanthropic owner completed in October 2014. This triggered a programme of repairs to be carried out. Changes were made to immediately remove the remains of all of the peripheral non-mining amusements.

Restoration of the gardens commenced in earnest and soon no less than 88 leylandii trees were felled and other improvements followed. The Falmouth Docks steam railway engine that had been ignominiously sold off on EBay was recovered and eventually returned to the museum in October with the generous assistance of the trustees of the Chasewater Railway in Staffordshire. It awaits restoration today.

In early June 2014 Peter Young was very pleased to learn of the pending return of the steam locomotive when he telephoned the museum from his home in Spain to have a long informative discussion with the new custodian.

2014 .... July 1, the founder of the museum, discoverer of the mine and visionary entrepreneur, former Royal Marine Peter George [Brigham] Young, died peacefully in Spain. In 2015 A casket containing some of his ashes were brought by his daughter Carol to be placed in the mine.

2015 ... Restoration of the mine continued with new powerful electric pumps, proper rising mains were installed, and a host of other improvements and infrastructure upgrades were carried out by contractors and volunteers. Contractors also generously gave some of their time free of charge. Some new lighting was fitted using LED technology and this was the start of major improvement to the electrical services. A number of sheds filled with artefacts and junk were cleared and many historic artefacts, mine drills, scale models and other mining items found their way back into the public museum areas.

A cabinet of Curiosities was created from the remaining scattered collection of the late Peter England. He had been curator of the museum during the Young family ownership and had amassed his collection in the 1950s in forays to the Portobello Antiques Market in London during his time as a lecturer at the Paddington Technical College. More curios and historic items were added by the new custodian from his collection. We continue to purchase & accept artefacts to add to the collections.

A new refreshment counter was created in the new Museum building, Switzers Buttery. The former open verandah was enclosed with a new disabled ramp and a new room for teas overlooking the gardens was created using reclaimed materials from other parts of the grounds.

A bandstand was built in the garden toward the end of the summer of 2015 on the footprint of the former aviary and in September was used for the first Brass on the Grass concert for over 14 years. The following year 2016 saw no less than 8 brass band concerts, a wedding and two well attended plays being performed in the gardens. The bandstand was one of the three places licenced for weddings & civil partnerships. Saturday afternoon band concerts (12pm -2pm ) have been regular events ever since.

2016 ... A new special section in the museum was created .... The Methodist Connexion Archive .... to tell the story of the profound influence that the ministry of John & Charles Wesley had on the lives of the Cornish miner and other Cornish folk in the 1700s. There were Wesleyan chapels all over Cornwall. Since 2016 the collection has been expanded to include no less than five full sized church pipe organs, one built in Truro as a WW1 memorial to the fallen of the Treverva area. Three are in storage and two are on display, one is is working order and the second is being restored.

There are lots of monogrammed china items from various local and other places. The entire contents of the 1805 Georgian Sunday School from Flushing on the Fal River are on display. The major contents of the 1816 Flushing Methodist Church are now in our care due to the trustees wishing to see the contents on display and preserved for future generations.

The 1880 communion table and chairs from Falmouth Pikes Hill Methodist Chapel are in the museum. The chapel was demolished in 1979. There is inter alia an 1850s era octagonal baptismal font carved in dark Cornish Serpentine that was used at Falmouth until 2016. The charismatic Billy Bray was a tin miner-preacher in the early 1800s - he was virtually a pauper but nonetheless raised funds to build no less than three Bible Christian chapels and mention is made of him in the collection too.

It is often forgotten that most of the Methodist chapels in Cornwall were funded over many years literally by the hard-earned pennies of miners, farm workers and fishermen - at one time there were over 900 in use. Miners going abroad would send money to their chapels and families too. 184 chapels are now listed buildings but year by year more are closing down and turning to other uses. Many of the first local village schools & some secondary schools or colleges were opened & run by the Methodist church, most of these were later taken over by the state in the early 1900s but some survived. The miners would often sing Charles Wesleys hymns below ground as did the bal maidens and workers on the surface, or on the way to the mines in their clogs, aprons and white buckram or straw hats. Services were sometimes held in the underground passageways, there were several miners who were much respected preachers. The charismatic Billy Bray was a miner & evangelical preacher, he literally built no less than three chapels, much by his own hands.

The museum is aiming to save as much as possible of Cornish Methodist churches and chapels and to tell the story of Methodism and its effect on the lives of the Cornish people and elsewhere in the world through missionary work and migration.

2016... Early Summer in 2016 saw old buildings at the mine being bulldozed, the gardens much improved and a volunteer group established. Volunteers commenced clearance of the woodland gardens and to restore machinery and buildings.

2016 ... December 2016 saw the museum being expanded to include a section on Tin & Copper called Techno Tin that encompasses telegraphy, telephony and telecommunications. During the year six large cabinets were presented by the Tank Museum at Bovington. Two large circular modern chandeliers arrived at the same time. These cabinets and lights came from Harrods in Knightsbridge London. The huge lanterns now illuminate the shop and ticket counter. A better and bigger book & rock shop was created along with a new entrance hallway and opened on December 3rd.

2017... In May the Book, Rock & Memento shop bookcases, counter, shelves and other fittings were presented to the museum by the National Trust from the Elgar Birthplace Museum in Worcestershire.

2017 ... In April no less than eight large state-of-the-art professional museum cabinets were presented to the mine museum by the National Museum of Wales. This enabled most of the old cabinets to be removed and the museum has been in the throes of being slowly re-organised since June. We hope to complete a more extensive museum ready for spring 2019. This will enable expansion into the present storage area which will add a further 70 feet of museum space.

Our educational aims were much encouraged as teams of geologists and surveyors the Camborne School of Mines commenced using the mine as a field study centre from the middle of the year and students came to visit a Cornish mine for the very first time in many cases. The lamps from Kellingley Colliery have proved their worth on these occasions.

2018 .... This was a quiet year due to the heatwave but despite a lowered revenue considerable works were carried out during the year, new automatic pumps fitted over the previous winter months were deployed during the spring and proved to be reliable. This work enabled the Deep Mine Tour to commence each Tuesday and Thursday - these were very well subscribed, this part of the mine had been closed for over 5 years.

Autumn 2018 ..... The Camborne School of Mines worked with us during 2018 on Field Studies for the second year running. We were very pleased to welcome and interact with many students from all over the world and this involvement is continuing during 2019. This partnership greatly assists with our expenses during quieter times and allows us to employ our main guide & contractors more fully.

December 2018 saw the removal of old sheds, walls and derelict passageways and a re-profiled upper garden driveway with the beginnings of a new access walkway down to the garden level and which will enable us to open the woodland garden. Many more precarious trees were removed and the main car park was cleared. The rear driveway created before the 1300s was cleared of all discarded rubbish and the historic items found were placed into storage. The leat was cleared in part and some interesting discoveries were made, such as the finding of two granite boundary stones. We hope to have finished this work by spring 2020.

In brief ...

. The world-famous Poldark Mine and ancient tinning floors are a UNESCO World Heritage Inscription location. The grounds also contain a 3,500 year old late Bronze-Age Scheduled Ancient Monument to tin working - the only such monument in the entire South West, in fact in all of the UK.

The mine & tin dressing floors are celebrated for their unrivalled industrial history from the 13th century and for more recent links with the popular Poldark BBC television part fictional series of the 1970s. Scenes being filmed within the labyrinth of mine levels.

Winston Graham, author of the Poldark and many other books, was a regular visitor here launching his final Poldark book at the mine in 2002 amid much celebration and media interest, it was he who re-named the ancient Huel Roots Mine as Poldark Mine over 40 years ago.

In 2014 the Mine was again used as the location for all of the underground sequences for a new BBC broadcasting of the Poldark series. A number of artifacts from the Cornish National Heritage Collection museum at Poldark Mine were used as props in the filming and can be seen by visitors. A bell used by the lead actor can be seen and rung.

Waterpower TIN DRESSING, ROYALTY & MONKS

The waterways, that were created at the end of the 13th Century, most probably by the Cistercian Monks themselves, remain to this day and the tail race ponds and leats now form part of our pleasant gardens. The water is diverted from the fast flowing River Cober into our private mile and a half long [2.5 km] aqueduct upstream from our watermill on Porkellis Moor just after the meeting of the waters of the Medlyn River. The River Cober and the waters of our aqueduct flow through the mine grounds on different levels and then through the village, joining together again by the church into the Cober River which eventually flows into the Loe Pool, near Porthleven.

The Abbot (William De Gizors 1282-1284) and the 15 monks from the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary at Rewley {Sancta Maria de regali loco} in Oxford were given the advowson of St Wendron church & its chapels by Royal Charter between 1281 and 1284. The gift was confirmed by way of an Inspeximus of the Royal Charter on the 15th of September 1284 by Edmund Earl of Cornwall with its Great Tithes and glebe lands - 738 years ago in 2022.

Edmund was the son of Richard 1st Earl of Cornwall and grandson of King John. King John granted a Royal Charter to Helston on the 15th April 1201 - at that time Helston was part of Wendron.

The waterwheel powered Trenere Wolas Tin Stamps were created by Cistercian Monks and operated from that time until the early 1870s. There were at least four water wheels in operation at one time with no less than 24 heads of stamps.

Stampyng Mylls de Trenere Wolas..... In 1493 the lease of the tin mill and leats was renewed to a private individual by the Duchy of Cornwall. It is not known when the first lease was granted, but perhaps was 21 years earlier. The written lease renewal is contained in the Royal Assession Records of the Dukedom. The mans name was John Trerys a freeman. The rent was 3s 4d per year. There was also a blowing house, a grist mill and fish ponds.

The The historian A K Hamilton Jenkin records that the mill was renewed in 1500.

In the 1649 Parliamentary survey c150 years later, the rent was still the same 3s 4d* and the tenant by then was freeman Henry Leonard. [* 3s (three shillings) and 4d (four pence) - a total of just less than 17 new pence today or around a current value of £1,600.] The blowing house, grist mill and the fish ponds are mentioned. [The 1841 6 inch OS map shows a large river fed pond where the museum building stands today]

From the early 1800s Mr Hocker of Stithians operated and owed the tin stamps. In 1850 he leased the Trenear Tin Stamps to Mr Frederick Hill the owner of the adjoining Wendron Consols and New Wendron Consols for £45 per annum. Downstream near the church there was a sub tenant at another tin stamps, Richard Penaluna, tin dresser, his wife Charity and their sons Richard and James.

In 1854 , exactly 500 years after being given by the Black Prince to the monks at Rewley Abbey, a lease of lands that included the waterways, leat, waterwheels and the grounds [& the sub tenants], was granted by the successor in title to the dissolved abbey lands [Mr Thomas Hocker of nearby Stithians] to a Mr Frederick Hill, a Helston solicitor, who also owned the two adjoining mines, Wendron Consols (tin & copper) and New Wendron Consols (tin), the yearly rent was £45 a year - around £6,000 today.

Tin streamers working the valley most probably accidentally discovered the tin bearing lodes on the hill above the present day car park which used to be three small riverside ancient fields. It seems that they then started mining from the surface, this type of early working was known as Goffen working and would have been at the top of what is now the main shaft in the north part of the mine. The main lode was wide and worked downwards until the water table presented problems, at least two other shafts were made. This was in prehistory. Other parts of the mine beyond the public areas are known to be mediaeval.

Later the main shaft became far deeper when methods of removing the water were developed, initially by rag & chain pumps and the use of a kibble or bucket on ropes or chains, powered by a horse whim.

The mine has two further worked out lodes which can be seen by visitors, they are impressive. The distinctive quite wide blue peach seam of tin bearing tourmaline can be seen in several parts of the mine, but what remains has a very small percentage of tin and was not economical to mine.

Examples of the actual rag & chain pumps may be found in the museum having been recovered from the mine. The large kibble with its hand forged chain date from the early 1700s and were found in the main stope known as Horse Whim shaft.

The main shaft which can be explored by visitors today has a present depth of about 230 feet [35 fathoms] from the top of the hill to the sump at 5 Level from where we pump the mine from today. However the shaft continues downwards to at least one further level which is believed to be extensive due to the amount of wear on the sides of the shaft where it was impacted regularly by the kibbles. The sides of the shaft are virtually polished in appearance as a result. This can be seen on Deep Mine Adventure Tour B.

The main shaft has recently been identified as the location of a rare carbona mass. Thie discovery of this rare occurrence would have been rich treasure for those mining tin at the time.

There are a number of shafts and other areas of known workings beyond the present mine to the North

An important producer of tin from prehistoric times and the most important source of alluvial tin in West Cornwall the Wendron Mining District of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Inscription is amongst the oldest in Cornwall. The granite is circa 290 million years old being part of the Carnmenellis pluton. Other granites in Cornwall are about 20 million years younger.

John Norden [1547 – 1625] was born in Somerset - he was a cartographer, choreographer and antiquary. He recorded that in the 1580s the three most important tin mines in Kerrier district were Roselidden, later part of the Trumpet Consols group, Porkellis and Gorlimoe.

Long before recorded history the alluvia of the River Cober were being worked for tin. The richest areas were the Wendron and Porkellis Valleys, which were the most important sources of alluvial tin in West Cornwall. By the sixteenth century, underground mining was well established in the district.

The Wendron area was the scene of industrial activity from prehistoric times until the decline of mining in the late nineteenth early twentieth centuries. It has one of the longest histories of tin working of any district within Cornwall. By the 1580s underground mining was well advanced within the District.

The number of recorded mineral ventures within Wendron is 640, the second highest for any mining district in the Duchy however many of the mines and stream works date from prehistoric times and there are therefore no records of a great number of long forgotten operations. The District is the least researched in Cornwall. Of the many hundreds of archaeological surveys of mining sites in the County none have been conducted within the Wendron District.