East Pool mine

TR15 3NP Pool, near Redruth, Great Britain (UK) (Cornwall)

Impressive Cornish beam engines and industrial heritage discovery centre

At the very heart of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site sit these two great beam engines, originally powered by high-pressure steam boilers introduced by local hero Richard Trevithick.

Preserved in their towering engine houses, they are a reminder of Cornwall's days as a world-famous centre of industry, engineering and innovation.

The pumping engine is one of the largest surviving Cornish beam engines in the world, and the restored winding engine can be seen in action daily.

So come and enjoy a film, displays, models and knowledgeable guides, and discover the whole dramatic story of Cornish mining.

Wikipedia:
East Pool mine worked from the early 18th century until 1945, first for copper and later tin, it was very profitable for much of its life. Today the site has two preserved beam engines and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. It is owned by the National Trust.

The mine's main produce was copper and later tin, arsenic and wolframite, also small amounts of the ores of bismuth, cobalt and uranium.

History

East Pool mine started out in the early 18th century as a copper mine called "Pool Old Bal"

In 1921 there was a large rockfall underground which destroyed both of the mine's winding shafts, and caused flooding, so the next year a new shaft, named Taylor's Shaft after the mine manager, was started.

In 1924 a notable 90-inch (2.3 m) pumping engine was installed at this shaft, having been moved from Carn Brea mine where it had lain unused since 1914. It was known as Harvey's Engine and had been designed by Nicholas Trestrail and built in 1892 by Harvey & Co. It pumped water from the mine using seven lifts of pumps of 18-and-16-inch (0.46 and 0.41 m) diameter.
The 110-foot-tall (34 m) chimney stack for this engine's boilers was completed before the engine house was built. The unique feature of this stack, the vertical letters "EPAL" displayed in white bricks near the top, is still visible. As well as standing for "East Pool and Agar Limited", "EPAL" was also the brand name of the arsenic sold by the company.

The mine was taken over by its neighbour, South Crofty, and closed in 1945, but Harvey's Engine continued to pump water out of the South Crofty workings until 28 September 1954, when it was replaced by electrical pumps. It is likely that the Harvey's engine would have been scrapped were it not for the intervention of a Mr Greville Bathe of Florida, who purchased the engine and donated it to the Cornish Engines Preservation Committee, who gave it to the National Trust in 1967.

Today

Today, the site is within area A5 (The Camborne & Redruth Mining District) of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, and 2 beam engines have been preserved here.
Michell's Shaft Engine House contains the last beam whim engine to be installed in Cornwall. It has a cylinder of 30 inches (0.76 m) diameter and was built in 1887 by Holman Brothers. It cost £675 and was designed to run at 27 strokes per minute and have a winding speed of 1,000 feet per minute (5.1 m/s). The engine was saved from being scrapped in 1941; it has been in the care of the National Trust since 1967 and since 1975 is still run on occasions.

At Taylor's Shaft the National Trust has an Industrial Discovery Centre which incorporates several buildings dating from the 1920s. One of these is the engine house still containing the 90-inch (2.3 m) Harvey's Engine, which was saved through a donation from an American benefactor

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