Qualla: Kelly Mine, Devon

Kelly Mine, Devon: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ashley Dace, CC BY-SA 2.0. Kelly Mine never produced iron. It produced the wrong kind of iron oxide for that - too flaky, too mica-like, useless for smelting. What the ore was perfect for, it turned out, was paint. Specifically, the kind of corrosion-resistant industrial paint that protected the steel girders, ships, and bridges of the late Victorian era from rusting back into the soil they came from. Demand for that paint kept Kelly Mine working, in fits and starts, from the 1790s to 1951. The miners called the stuff "shiny ore." It came out of the rock glittering like crushed mirrors, and it ended up on the Forth Bridge, the gasworks at Beckton, and a thousand iron lamp-posts you never thought about until the paint began to flake.

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Image: Ashley Dace | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kelly Mine, Devon: What Came Out of the Ground

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The ore was micaceous haematite - iron(III) oxide in a flaky, plate-like crystalline form. Useless for making iron. Wonderful as a pigment. The flakes, suspended in oil or resin and brushed onto steel, overlapped each other to create a microscopic barrier that water and oxygen st...

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kelly Mine, Devon: Owners Come and Go

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sean_the_Spook (talk) (Uploads), CC BY-SA 3.0. The first recorded mining lease at Kelly dates to the 1790s. Work continued, fitfully, into the early 1870s. In 1877 the mine appears on a national register under the Kelly Iron Company, with W. H. Hooking as manager. The pits reopened in 1879 and produced 324 tons of ore by 1891...

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Image: Sean_the_Spook (talk) (Uploads) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kelly Mine, Devon: George William Druett

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ashley Dace, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 8 June 1910, a 28-year-old miner named George William Druett was killed at Kelly Mine. A wire rope snapped while a cage carrying 560 pounds of ore was being raised. The cage fell 180 feet down the shaft and struck Druett, killing him instantly. The inquest in Lustleigh heard t...

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Image: Ashley Dace | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kelly Mine, Devon: Devonshire Sand and Writing Ink

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The shiny ore had another use that has now mostly disappeared from memory. It was marketed from Kelly Mine as "Devonshire Sand" and sold as writing sand - the powder you sprinkled on freshly inked paper to blot it dry before envelopes and blotters became standard. Generations of ...

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kelly Mine, Devon: The Preservation Society

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1984 the owner agreed to lease the site to a group of mining enthusiasts who have organised themselves as the Kelly Mine Preservation Society. They have restored the buildings, refurbished the machinery, and brought the processing plant back to working order. The site occasion...

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0