Engine House At Sx 408715

CALSTOCK HINGSTON DOWN CONSOLS MINE SX 47 SW 2/115 Engine house at SX 408715 13.2.86 II Cornish engine house. Mid - late C19, altered 1905. Granite with dressed quoins and brick dressings. Plan: Rectangular engine house. Exterior: 3 storeys. The bob wall has an arched opening at ground level and a large rectangular bob opening above. Just below this are cast iron wall plates, two to each corner, marked Tavistock Iron Works 1882. Side walls have an arched window at each level. Parapet rebuilt in brick and the building re-roofed in 1905, when the building was adapted to house a second-hand 36 inch rotative beam engine by the Bedford foundry, Tavistock. This had previously worked at Devon Great Consols and here worked a set of stamps and pumped from the adjacent Bailey's Shaft. The hipped roof is now largely decayed. An interesting example of a late engine house adapted for a dual purpose engine but itself apparently older. The brick parapet and roof structure look like an alteration to an older building, but the whole may date from 1905. The 1882 dates on the wall plates seem unlikely to refer to the original building, since the mine was unworked at that time. The main periods of working Hingston Down Consols Mine were 1846-78 and 1905-8. The engine house makes a prominent landmark on the summit of Hingston Downs. Sources: Barton, D.B.: A Historical Survey of the Mines and Mineral Railways of East Cornwall and West Devon. 1964.

Listing NGR: SX4086671474