Qualla: Wheal Owles https://qualla.com/wheal-owles en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Wheal Owles https://qualla.com/wheal-owles Wheal Owles: Introduction https://qualla.com/wheal-owles/ It started with a roar. On 10 January 1893, deep beneath the cliffs of St Just, miners working the Wheal Owles tin mine drove their picks into what they thought was solid rock and broke instead into the flooded workings of neighbouring Wheal Drea. A wall of water surged through the tunnels, and the air it pushed ahead of it blasted out every lamp in the mine. Nineteen men and one boy died in the darkness. Their bodies were never recovered. Today the chimney stack of Wheal Owles still stands on the Penwith cliffs, a granite finger pointing at the Atlantic, and beneath it, somewhere in a mile-and-a-half-long pool of black water stretching almost to the Wesleyan Chapel at St Just Church-town, twenty men remain.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/wheal-owles-wp/gbgv-wheal-owles-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Wheal Owles: The Cliff Mine https://qualla.com/wheal-owles/ John Boyns began the workings around 1830, sinking shafts into older diggings on the wild edge of the Penwith peninsula. The early years were lean. Steam pumps drained the old tunnels, but little ore came up, and it was some time before the venture turned a profit. By 1836 the bo...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/wheal-owles-wp/gbgv-wheal-owles-the-cliff-mine.mp3 0:06 2 full Wheal Owles: A Terrible Roar https://qualla.com/wheal-owles/ A miner who survived left a description that has been quoted ever since. "A terrible roar was heard," he said, "followed by a rush of wind, which blew out all the lights. Knowing that something had gone wrong in the mine, the men made for the ladders, and soon found out it was a ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/wheal-owles-wp/gbgv-wheal-owles-a-terrible-roar.mp3 0:06 3 full Wheal Owles: Twenty Names https://qualla.com/wheal-owles/ The twenty who did not come out were the village. Tin mining in St Just was a family trade passed father to son, brother to brother, and the disaster tore a hole through Penwith that took generations to scar over. There was no salvage, no recovery effort that could ever succeed -...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/wheal-owles-wp/gbgv-wheal-owles-twenty-names.mp3 0:06 4 full Wheal Owles: Poldark's Cornwall https://qualla.com/wheal-owles/ There is a strange afterlife to the place. In 2015 the BBC adaptation of Winston Graham's Poldark novels chose the ruined engine houses of Wheal Owles as the fictional Wheal Leisure - the mine owned by Ross Poldark, brooding on horseback as the camera pulled back across the cliff...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/v/wheal-owles-wp/gbgv-wheal-owles-poldarks-cornwall.mp3 0:06 5 full