Qualla: Mount Wellington Tin Mine

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. When the brothers named Wellington started chipping away at the old Wheal Andrew lodes near St Day in the 1920s, Cornwall's tin industry had been in decline for half a century. They were working what miners called 'in a small way': primitive tools, an old shaft, ore lugged down the valley to a Cornish stamp mill for crushing. Captain Josiah Paull of the Mines and Metallurgical Club in London came down to look. He reported that the brothers were getting an average of 30 pounds of black tin per ton of ore broken. He also reported, with a Cornish miner's plain language, that 'being only ordinary Cornish miners,' the Wellingtons could not afford the new shaft they needed. The mine that bore their name would not properly exist for another fifty years.

Image: Public domain

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: Two False Starts

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The first real attempt to develop the property came in 1935, when Mount Wellington Ltd, backed by the British Non-ferrous Mining Corporation, acquired rights to United and Consolidated Mines, Wheal Clifford and Wheal Andrew. Shares were advertised that February. Shafts were sunk,...

Image: Public domain

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: The 1970s Revival

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. It took until 1963 for serious money to come back. International Mine Services Ltd of Toronto became interested in Cornwall's mineral potential. Exploratory drilling began at Mount Wellington in 1967. In 1969 the contract to sink the No.1 Wellington Shaft and build new surface bu...

Image: Public domain

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: Closed in Two Years

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The economics did not work. On 20 April 1978, just over two years after first ore came up the No.1 shaft, Mount Wellington Mine closed. The shaft was retained for access but no more ore was ever raised through it. The administrators of Cornwall Tin & Mining Ltd sold the site to a...

Image: Public domain

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: Operating as a Satellite

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. From 1980 onwards Mount Wellington operated as a satellite of Wheal Jane next door. Some ore from Wellington fed Wheal Jane's mill. Old mine waste was slurried and pumped through a new pipeline to be reprocessed for residual tin. By 1984 Carnon Consolidated had also bought South ...

Image: Public domain

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: The Pollution Plume

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On 16 January 1992 the most infamous mine water disaster in UK history happened next door at Wheal Jane. Without active pumping, the rising groundwater eventually breached an old adit. Three hundred and twenty million litres of untreated acidic mine water and sludge burst out of ...

Image: Public domain

Mount Wellington Tin Mine: Renewable Energy in the Ruins

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Mount Wellington Mine site was bought in 2007 by Mount Wellington Mine Ltd. The remaining headgear was removed. The site was renovated as a private gated business park. The first tenant was Kensa Heat Pumps, a manufacturer of ground-source heat pump systems, and the parallel was ...

Image: Public domain