Summary

Trenow Consols, which probably incorporated the setts of Carn Perran and Wheal Pleasant, was restarted in 1845-6, when it was described as being a prosperous copper mine, at which an 85” cylinder engine was being installed. The mine was visited by Prince Albert at this time and the prospects for the adventurers looked rosy.

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Description

Trenow Consols, which probably incorporated the setts of Carn Perran and Wheal Pleasant, was restarted in 1845-6, when it was described as being a prosperous copper mine, at which an 85” cylinder engine was being installed. The mine was visited by Prince Albert at this time and the prospects for the adventurers looked rosy. Not long after, however, ‘Higher Trenow
Consols’ became so poor that it was abandoned, its beam engine, horse whims and materials being put up for sale. In the Carn Perran sett (embracing the cliff between Trenow Cove and the Greeb), tributers continued to work for a short time above adit, recovering £1,200 worth of tin from a rich bunch (Hamilton Jenkin 1979). Dines records a reworking of these lodes in conjunction with the nearby Wheal Charlotte, whilst Burt (1987) notes a further attempt at reworking in the form of the sinking of a shaft in 1912, though final abandonment took place in the following year. The northern block of the property includes six definite shafts associated with this mine (97103, 97105, 97106, 97107, 97111, 97112) and is bordered by three others (two in the vicinity of the farm—not NT—and one on the north-east boundary (97104)). The southern block of the property contains three known shafts (97113, 97116, 97117) and is bordered by two others—not NT, as well as shafts associated with the neighbouring setts of Wheal Charlotte near the north-eastern boundary of the property and South Wheal Neptune at Maen-du Point adjoining the south-eastern boundary of the property.

The mine buildings at Trenow appear to have been converted and extended to form the nucleus of the present settlement.

The identification of the names of individual shafts within the Charlotte United/Trenow
Consols sett has proved particularly difficult with only those along Trenow Engine Lode being identifiable with any degree of certainty, these being described by Dines (1956). It is possible that Dines did not have access to mine plans for the shafts in the western section of the property, since these do not seem to be described at any point in his description of the layout of the mine.

The 1st Edition 1:2500 mapping (1878?) shows six shafts in the northern block of land at Trenow. By 1907 only one of these was still depicted, though an additional shaft was mapped near the centre of the group.

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