SOUTH CROFTY MINE
Mark Kaczmarek & Brian Jenkins on the croust seat. 400 fathom level, No4 Drive East at the start of the NPZ Crosscut. The 400-380 fathom ladderway (mined by Wayne Brown) is at the end of the chamber to the right of the picture Note the diamond drill collar point markings on the walls. Photo taken in 1997 by Edgar Bergstein.
South Crofty Mine is situated mid-way betwen Camborne and Redruth at Pool in Cornwall. Beginning its life as a small sett called Penhellick Vean in the 1590's, it grew as it absorbed the smaller mines around it, becoming South Wheal Crofty in 1854. Initially a shallow tin mine and then a copper mine, the mine workings went back into the deep tin zone from the 1860's onwards and copper production began to decline. In 1906 South Crofty Mine Ltd became the foundation of the modern mine. From the 1890's onwards the mine acquired other setts as the surrounding mines closed, including New Cook's Kitchen Mine, Tincroft & Carn Brea, North Roskear, South Roskear and Dolcoath Mine in 1930, to become a huge enterprise spanning nearly 4.5 km in length.
The modern mine was worked for tin, arsenic and tungsten during the early 20th century, but by the 1960's tin was the sole product. The workings eventually reached almost 3000 feet in depth, equalling Dolcoath, and stretched from Centenary Street in Camborne to Barncoose. The mine closed, controversially, in 1998 after some 400 years of almost continuous work, still posessing significant reserves and several tempting exploration targets.
The mine was reopened in September 2001, by Baseresult Ltd, as New Cook's Kitchen Mine and is now officially unabandoned. A section of the workings above adit, on North Tincroft Lode, have (as of October 2003) been opened for tourist visits with access from the Tuckingmill Decline, though currently the tours have been suspended as mining operations are taking place in the immediate vicinity. In November 2007 a new company, Western United Mines (Baseresult 51%, Galena LLP 49%), was formed to finance further mining operations. At the present time (June 2009) work is concentrating around the decline with a crosscut (at the 10 fathom level) driven north, which has intersected both Middle Engine Shaft and New Cook's Kitchen Shaft (for access & ventilation); and a 1.6 km exploration drive being driven south and west to parallel Dolcoath Main Lode. The drive has passed through The Great Crosscourse after being driven through some very challenging ground conditions (a collapse of ground at the intersection with some old workings ran through to surface and had to be plugged with concrete); it is is now being ramped down below the water table, with a third re-mucking point to be mined soon. The drive is now beneath the eastern end of Dolcoath Road in Camborne and progressing westwards. Shortly a turnout for a new level (the 60 fathom level) will be mined and the new level will run back, through Dolcoath Main Lode, to Williams Shaft, where a new pumping station will be situated. Diamond drilling has begun: a short hole to the south intersected a stope on Chapple's Lode (Cook's Kitchen Mine) and a long hole is currently being drilled north to potentially intersect Silver Lode and North Entral Lode (Dolcoath) before passing into the Roskear setts. WUM plan to explore the ground between Dolcoath and the Roskear mines to the north while also exploring Dolcoath Mine, which may be more economically viable than the main South Crofty Mine itself. The mine has taken delivery of a new DIAMEC diamond drill which has been evaluated on targets identified close to New Cook's Kitchen Shaft. Although flooded to a point at the head of the current workings (~300 feet below surface) WUM intend to restart working the mine and currently expect to resume tin production in early 2010. New offices have been commissioned in the dry and this building is now in use again after a gap of 10 years.
The current price of base metals (despite recent setbacks and price falls), driven by Chinese & Indian industrialisation, has lead to renewed interest in the metal deposits of Cornwall & Devon. The Australian company, Wolf Mining, is currently investigating Hemerdon Sn/W deposit in Devon; there has been renewed interest in Cligga Mine and it is likely that other Cornish tin, copper and zinc deposits will be the subject of exploration activity.
I spent five years at South Crofty. It was a very unusual & rewarding job; it was what I'd been trained for and always wanted to do, but the place also had a very strong family atmosphere and I enjoyed the job as much for the people as for the geology. Whether it was sitting on the croust bench doing the crossword with Geoff Harvey, playing Quake against the boys from Tech Serv & the Mine Superintendent, listening to more of Peter Barnes' stories of exploits with nuclear missles, submarines and spitfires, trying not to get caught up in one of Sos's scams or watching Mark Kaczmarek stitch up another poor unsuspecting fool (sometimes he even got me....but then he seemed to get everyone sometime or other.....) there was always lots of 'crack' and fun to be had. Unfortunately most of those stories are unprintable and you really had to be there for some of them, but many of the guilty do appear in the photo section - you know who you are!
Trammers David Medlen (l) and Kevin Mutton (r) on the croust seat by the 400 fathom level, No4 Drive 100mE tipping point, with Nick Le Boutillier. Waste from the NPZ Crosscut was being tipped here into an old stope, using a number of wagons and the 5-ton Clayton loco in the photograph. Photo taken in 1997 by Edgar Bergstein.
Nick Le Boutillier. Barring down in a stope - Providence Lode, 400 Fathom Level. 1996. Photo by Simon Jones.
This section contains pages on the geology of the mine, mine level plans, sections and a page of photographs taken between 1993 and 1998, and 2004 and the present. Click on the relevant button to navigate to the page you require.
This page last updated on 01/06/2009
