Qualla: Levant Mine and Beam Engine

Levant Mine and Beam Engine: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kernow Skies, CC BY-SA 3.0. It was just before half past two on a Monday afternoon, 20 October 1919. The day shift was riding home. At Levant Mine, that meant clinging to the timbers of the man engine - a rocking shaft of wood that lifted and lowered men through six hundred metres of darkness, twelve feet at a stroke. Roughly a hundred and fifty men were on the rod that afternoon, spread up its full length. The bolt securing the cap to the engine arm sheared without warning. The whole timber column lurched and then plunged into the shaft. Thirty-one men died. Their names are read aloud in Trewellard every October. Their mine has become a museum. Their engine, the world's last Cornish beam engine still in steam on its original site, still works.

Image: Kernow Skies | CC BY-SA 3.0

Levant Mine and Beam Engine: The Mine Under the Sea

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah Charlesworth, CC BY-SA 2.0. Levant opened in 1820 with twenty shares of twenty pounds each. By the time the first big profits were tallied, the mine had returned £171,000 against £1.3 million worth of ore raised from the rock. What made the place extraordinary was the direction it ran. From the cliffs at Tr...

Image: Sarah Charlesworth | CC BY-SA 2.0

Levant Mine and Beam Engine: Six Engines on the Cliff

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Johnson [1], CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1883 The Cornishman could list six engines at work above the shafts: a 45-inch pumping engine to keep the sea out, a 30-inch stamps to break the ore, a 26-inch whim to wind it up, an 18-inch crusher, a small 14-inch winding engine, and a 24-inch man engine to carry the workfor...

Image: David Johnson [1] | CC BY-SA 3.0

Levant Mine and Beam Engine: Thirty-one Names

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ashley Dace, CC BY-SA 2.0. The man engine was a Cornish invention, an attempt to spare miners the brutal climb up wooden ladders at the end of a shift. A great vertical rod, fitted with platforms, oscillated in the shaft; a man stepped on, rose twelve feet, stepped off onto a fixed platform, waited for the...

Image: Ashley Dace | CC BY-SA 2.0

Levant Mine and Beam Engine: The Engine That Survived

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Champion, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the mine shut, salvage crews stripped most of the surface works. The Harvey's beam engine of 1840 might have gone for scrap had a small band of enthusiasts not started saving it in 1984 - the Greasy Gang, as they cheerfully called themselves, who spent years cleaning out de...

Image: Jim Champion | CC BY-SA 3.0

Levant Mine and Beam Engine: What Remains

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gareth James, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today Levant is a National Trust property. A visitor centre tells the story honestly. There is a short underground tour, and the South West Coast Path links Levant to Botallack Mine along the cliff. Since 2006 it has been part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape UNESC...

Image: Gareth James | CC BY-SA 2.0