Wheal Kitty

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Wheal Kitty
Cornwall
St Agnes, Wheal Kitty - geograph.org.uk - 92307.jpg
Wheal Kitty
Location
Grid reference: SW726513
Location: 50°19’5"N, 5°11’42"W
Data
Local Government
Council: Cornwall

Wheal Kitty is a village in Cornwall, by the rugged north coast of the county, about half a mile north east of St Agnes on the Goonlaze Downs plateau.

Wheal Kitty Mine

The village is named after the Wheal Kitty Mine, an old and famous tin mine of these parts, now closed, but in its time it was dug to a depth of some 180 fathoms.[1]

The mine reopened in the 1830s, mining tin and copper ore but was closed in 1842 before reopening ten years later.[1] Two Cornish engine houses and four stacks remain with a 65-inch beam engine constructed by the Perran Foundry in 1852 and installed here in 1910. It pumped water from Sara’s Shaft and was reported to be some 950 feet deep.[2] It employed about 220 people in 1914 and closed in 1930.[3]

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References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Gamble, Barry: Cornish Mines: Gwennap to the Tamar (Alison Hodge Publishers, 2011) ISBN 978-0-906720-82-0, page 32
  2. Kenneth Brown & Bob Acton, Exploring Cornish Mines, Volume 1. Landfall Publications, 1994
  3. Wheal Kitty Mine - Cornwall Calling