Pump Engine House To Robinsons Shaft At South Crofty Mine

This is a pump engine house associated with the South Crofty tin mine, built in 1903 and slightly altered since. It is constructed of un-coursed killas rubble with granite quoins, featuring a bob wall of large, dressed granite blocks. The window arches are brick, and the bob opening has wooden shuttering, while the roof is slate. A brick upper stage is present on the chimney.

The building is rectangular, aligned east-west, with the bob wall facing west and a chimney attached to the north-east corner, adjacent to the boiler house. It has three stages, with round-headed openings on all sides. The rear wall features a large raised cylinder doorway with a central glazed and panelled door, matching side windows, and a semicircular fanlight with radiating glazing bars. There is one matching window on each floor above. To the right of the doorway is a tapered cylindrical chimney stack with moulded brick cornices. The south wall has two similar windows at ground floor level, and one on each floor above, with a blocked segmental-headed window at first floor level. The north side also has similar fenestration. The bob wall has a driver’s window at ground floor and a rectangular bob opening at the top, from which the engine beam projects (though the former bob-plat is missing).

The interior remains fully equipped with an 80-inch cylinder Cornish beam engine and its associated controls, apparently in the condition it was in when it ceased working in 1955. The engine, dated 1854 and originally from Tregurtha Downs Mine near Marazion, has a cast-iron cylinder base decorated with intersecting Gothic arcading, a moulded cornice, and stout fluted “columns” surrounding the mounting bolts. The beam has raised lettering reading "SANDYS VIVIAN CO HAYLE 1854”. A staircase with a closed string and slender turned balusters is also present.

This is an exceptionally complete survival of its type, comparable only to the engine house at Taylor's Shaft, East Pool, Camborne, and forms part of a well-preserved group of mine buildings.