Wheal Prosper Engine House

SW 52 NE BREAGE RINSEY

6/183 Wheal Prosper Engine House - II

Beam engine house ruin. Circa 1860. Killas rubble with dressed granite quoins and jambstones, wooden lintels and brick upper stage to chimney. Rectangular plan with round chimney clasping the rear right (east) corner; thicker front bob wall (south west) with plug doorway; boiler doorway in rear wall. Machinery, floors, studwork to second and gable over bob wall, and roof structure removed. Originally 3 floors over basement pit. Basement plinth. Central ground floor opening to front bob wall; central opening to each floor of rear gable end; window opening to each floor of left hand (north west) wing wall and ground floor opening to right hand wing wall, plus small square openings in wing walls for removed cross beams. 2 stage tapered chimney with 2 moulded brick collars. Wheal Prosper worked from circa 1860 to 1866. There was a 30 inch pumping engine here which had "almost nothing to do, only making about two strokes in three minutes". In 1860 a 20 inch stamping and winding engine was erected; (this is possibly what this engine house contained); and 16 head of stamps were worked. These were also dressing floors here supplied with water pumped from the mine and distributed with wooden launders. This engine house, restored in 1970 by the National Trust, stands in unspoilt coastal moorland near the cliff edge. Sources : Mines and Miners of Cornwall, (vol. 4) by A K Hamilton Jenkin.

Listing NGR: SW5937327015