Former smithy at Wheal Busy

This is a former blacksmith’s shop and workshop, built around 1872 for Wheal Busy mine. It may also incorporate fabric and materials from the mid-19th century.

The smithy is constructed of random rubble stone, including Cornish killas and ore-bearing rock, with granite quoins. It has a large and impressive scantle-slate roof, topped by a stone and red-brick chimney stack. Later alterations and repairs are visible in brick and blockwork.

The building is rectangular in plan, with a small extension having a single-pitch roof (the roof of which has been recently removed) extending north-south at the east end.

The single-story building has a hipped roof and a tall chimney stack positioned off-centre. The east side shows remnants of a ventilated brickwork course at eaves level. The main south-facing elevation has entrances on the left and right; the right-hand entrance is topped with a brick arch, and the left-hand with a late 20th-century steel lintel. Between the entrances are two window openings, and a further window is blocked on the south elevation of the eastern extension. The east elevation of the extension has doorways on either side, with two window openings between them. The north return elevation to the extension has a single window opening. On the east elevation of the main building, central timber double doors are accompanied by a window to their right, and a cast-iron lintel above inscribed “GREAT WHEAL BUSY MINES 1872”. The north elevation displays irregularly spaced window openings of various sizes, with a single doorway at the right-hand end. A large opening on the left has a further cast-iron inscribed lintel. The west elevation has a single window opening, and the right-hand side of the wall extends southward – this is all that remains of a former extension on that side.

Internally, the building is divided into two bays by a partition wall of rubble stone and the base of the chimney, with the forge and chimney located slightly west of the centre. A smaller room with rubble-stone walls is situated to the south of the former forge, and a more recent timber-walled room is to the north-east. The roof is supported by timber king-post trusses, many of which display visible carpenter’s marks. The floor is composed of packed earth, overlaid in places with 20th-century concrete slabs. The cast-iron lintels to the north and east entrances are also inscribed on their internal faces.