Carpenters Shop, Workshops And Forge At Robinsons Shaft, South Crofty Mine

SW 64 SE CARN BREA STATION ROAD (West side, off) 501/5/10019 Carpenters' shop, workshops And Forge at Robinson's Shaft, South Crofty Mine

GV II*

Carpenters' shop, sawmill, workshop and forge. 1903-10. Weatherboard over timber frame to east elevation, killas rubble to west elevation; corrugated sheet roofs, with brick rear stack to forge. EXTERIOR: The carpenters' shop, sawmill, workshop and forge forms a long rectangular-plan range to the W of the shaft with a short central wing to the E, rebuilt in concrete blocks to the S section (the former forde area), which has a louvred ridge; various windows including some 10/10-pane sashes. Plank doors, including one part-glazed sliding door to east projecting wing. INTERIOR: Composite trusses. Forge reported to contain some original plant. HISTORY: This part of the South Crofty Mine was re-organised between 1900 and 1908, and the current buildings represent the mine as it was by 1914, with the loss of the 1903-6 miners' dry to the S side. The steam engine was moved here from Tregurtha Downs. It includes the paired engine houses for pumping and winding, the compressor house and its chimney, and the extensive workshop provision for the mine. The persistence of mining into the C20 in the Camborne/Redruth area has resulted in a number of extraordinarily well-preserved complexes such as Taylor's Shaft at East Pool, King Edward mine and the Tolgus tailings works. This is the most complete surviving part of the South Crofty workings, the last working tin mine in Europe which closed in 1998, remarkable for its degree of preservation in a national context and with a range of buildings including the engine house and boiler house (qqv) which are strongly representative of C19 and early C20 mine workings. (Trounson, J, Mining in Cornwall, Vol.1, 1985)

Listing NGR: SW6674641230