Levant Mine and Engine House

The Levant mine is located near Botallack about 10 miles up the North coast of Cornwall from Land's End. It is perched on the cliffside and some of the tunnels went out up to a mile under the sea.

These are the two winding drums which could operate in different directions allowing one skip to be raised while the other was being lowered. The cables went from these up to the top of the Shaft head frame, then round two huge pulley wheels and down the shaft.

The Levant beam engine is Cornwall's oldest surviving mine engine and also the most Westerly, it was built by the West Country’s foremost engine builder, Harvey and Co. of Hayle. It is said to have been designed by Francis Michell, a member of a distinguished Cornish engineering family.

The 12.2 ft diameter flywheel weighs 8600 lb. it is controlled by large wooden brakes brought into operation by a hand wheel at the driver’s position.

It is steam driven and was used constantly from 1840 until 1930, it ran 24/7 and was used to hoist twin skips up and down the shaft. The skips were meant to carry ore and waste rock but sometimes men would hitch a ride in them as well.

The boiler, of the Cornish single flue type, is located in the boiler house alongside the engine house. Its working pressure would have been about 30 pounds per square inch.

Today when it is fired up it runs at a fraction of it's working pressure as it is only running the engine for demonstration purposes.

The overhead 17.4 ft rocking beam weighs 4500 lb. and is supported on a massive timber spanning the house. A sweep rod links one end of the beam to the engine.

Mine engines were often open to the air but Levant, perched on the cliff edge was open to the full fury of the Atlantic storms and the engine was enclosed to protect it.

Girls and women worked at the mine but only on the surface, they started work at age 12 carrying ore and waste material and were known as bal maidens, The tin crushing machines were known as stamps and could be heard as far away as Penzance - approximately 12 miles. The bal maidens and other surface workers suffered terrible hearing problems, splinters of rock from the stamps often caused injury and total or partial blindness was not uncommon.

Tucked away in a corner of the engine house is a small fire built into the wall - The engine operators had much better conditions than most workers although the environment in the mine house was noisy, steamy and smelly.

The Cornish Pasty - designer food for miners.

The shape of the pasty was developed as a health precaution - the thick crusty edge was for holding the meal by and was supposed to be thrown way afterwards so they did not eat the grit and poisons as part of their dinner. Hunger and poverty often meant that the crust was eaten too. A miner's dinner break was known as "Croust" a term still in use for break time amongst the general working population today. A proper pasty would be twice the size of most of the pasties available in the shops today. It would have savoury (meat and veg) at one end and, if they were lucky, a sweet sauce at the other - a two course meal in one wrapping.

There were many toxic minerals down the mines including arsenic, the miners would absorb these through their skin and lungs and suffered from disease, life expectancy was short - a 35 year old miner was an old man, most died well before this.

To speed up access down to the working levels a "Man Engine" was installed, this was an ingenious but dangerous device.

Conditions in the mining industry were dire - boys started work down the mine aged 9 and faced a two and a half hour climb down rickety wet slippery ladders before they could start work and had the same climb to reach the surface after a hard day working in cramped conditions at temperatures of 45C and greater. The steps that can be seen part way down the cliff gave access to mine adits - horizontal passages.

Unlike the coal mines there was no danger of explosions due to gas but temperatures and humidity were very high and the air of poor quality, so much so that candles had to be placed low on the floor to stay alight.