Tavy and Tamar Valleys (Devon side) - Lodes 6-10

Lodes 6 & 7 - George & Charlotte Mine c.1760-1821

Also: Devon & Cornwall United (with Harewood Consols) 1840-1869

Lode 7, which may have been the Two Brothers Copper Work in 1718 has no evidence of underground working other than a short exploratory adit. This is driven into the hillside from beneath a C19 sawpit at the northern end of New Quay. Another is visible in the side of the New Quay road of 1774 and presumably post-dates it. It may line up with Lode 6.

Lodes 8 & 9 - George & Charlotte Mine, c.1760s-c.1821.

Also worked as Providence Mine 1718 & 1724, Devon & Cornwall United (with Harewood Consols) c.1840-69.

Worked underground by means of a long and deep gunnis from c.1718 to the 1740s, when it appears to have been known as the Providence Mine, whose shareholders included John Coster of the Bristol Copper Company. It may have been worked continuously throughout the 18th century, but the next certain period of working seems to have been between the 1760s and the 1790s, when the deep adit (also known as Bastard's Level) was driven, apparently containing a underground water wheel (adjoining the later Whim Shaft) for pumping.

The mine appears to have been renamed by the 1760s, after the then monarch George III and his wife. A mineral dues list in the Bedford papers refers to its working in this period under a captain called Nathaniel Smith (Bedford Estate Letters, Mining & Canals, DRO). His name is listed with several mines, suggesting that he was peripatetic, having part-time responsibility for them all. He was still living at Calstock in 1815 and may have been related to a man of the same name who designed and built large water wheels at Wheal Friendship and Devon Great Consols in the mid-19th century.

Little is known about the mine's activity during this period, although later accounts refer to a large bunch of copper ore being found, straddling the deep adit; the resulting stope being named the 'Devil's Kitchen'. Satanic names were applied to other mines in Devon and Cornwall, such as Delve's Kitchen (Lode 30). Ding Dong Mine (Lode 28) may derive from rhyming slang of the same root - 'Ding Dong Bell' = 'Hell'.

The mine's next reference comes in 1806, when it was bought by the Tavistock Canal Company. At this point, the abandoned outcrop working of Holming Beam, intersected by the Canal Tunnel, was added to its sett. Working on these mines seems to have commenced almost immediately, as expenditure is listed in the Canal Company's accounts for 1806 to 1807.

After the Bedford Estates reminded the Canal Company in 1812 that they were supposed to be driving a canal tunnel, not engaging in speculative mining, work was stopped until 1816 when the canal was completed. From then until 1821, several of the lodes encountered by the canal tunnel were tried by the company and it seems probable that these included George & Charlotte, as the Gawton Leat which ran through the sett was certainly in existence by 1825 and the mine's No. 2 water wheel appears to have an earlier phase of development. William & Mary Mine was tried in 1819-20, but although some copper ore was found, it was not thought worth pursuing.

It is possible that George & Charlotte was moribund from 1821 to 1844, but in that year it was revived and by 1851 had been amalgamated with Harewood Consols on the opposite bank of the Tamar, becoming Devon & Cornwall United Mine. It was developed to its fullest extent during this time, being worked by three large water wheels, one probably being used for development work on the western end of the lode at Morwellham, and a small steam whim, possibly on Ley's Shaft.

Three new shafts were sunk: Cross-course Shaft being internal, with Ley's Shaft sunk to 34fms below adit (83fms from surface) as a triple compartment haulage, footway and pumping shaft, connected with the 45ft diameter No. 1 water wheel by flat rods. Engine Shaft (which may have been earlier) was sunk to 54fms and was connected with the 40ft diameter No. 2 wheel via a short run of flat rods: the wheel also probably ventilated Cross-course Shaft via a horizontal chain on pulleys in Middle Adit, and hauled ore to the dressing floors via Engine Shaft.

In 1866, a level was driven from Ley's Shaft at 20fms below adit to undermine the Devil's Kitchen in the hope that even greater riches might be found there, but although copper ore sales in the 1850s had been good, the mine fell foul of the copper slump after 1867 and closed in 1869 (Hamilton Jenkin 1974, 34-35).

Shafts from the west are:
Footway (exact position lost);
Whim (open above adit);
Engine (open, but not on lode);
Cross-Course (internal, choked);
Air (on Shallow Adit, part filled);
Emily (capped);
Ley's (open).

Ley's Shaft is a large triple-compartment haulage and pumping shaft, sunk to the full 90fm depth in the 1840s and pumped by flatrods from No. 1 water wheel. Harewood Consols on the Cornish bank of the river was worked in conjunction with George & Charlotte in the 1840s-1860s.

Lode 9 - Western end

Possibly worked with George & Charlotte Mine in later C18, probably developed as part of George & Charlotte Sett 1840s-50s, part of Wheal Russell Sett by 1867.

An adit on a north-south cross-course was driven from the Tamar marshes at in the 18th century, presumably with the aim of draining Lode 10, but was never completed. It may however have cut another lode to its east at where a filled shaft lay beside a 19th century shaft head smithy. The 1867 Bedford Estate Map shows a possible balance bob pit on the east side of the shaft: this lines up with a rectangular structure (probably a water wheel pit) on an 1857 lease map in the Bedford Estate Archives at Woburn. This may be the third water wheel of 28ft diameter recorded by Gilson Martin for George & Charlotte Mine in his Bedford Estate Mines & Quarries Report of 1869 (DRO).

It may have taken its water from the tailrace of the Morwellham Farm water wheel, erected after 1843. The pit site was later occupied by the allotments for Morwellham Cottages, built in 1856.

A C18 or earlier leat taken from Lobscombe in the vicinity of Lode 10b has been traced to this point, but this may have continued further west to serve the main working at 10c. It certainly predates 1816, as it is respected by the Tavistock Canal Incline formation with a culvert beneath.

Lode 10a - Unknown, no documentation

A short trial cross-cut adit on a NW to SE alignment, apparently designed to dewater a short line of lodeback pits or trenches observed on the hillside to the south-east (1946 RAF APs). Almost certainly one of the Tavistock Canal Company's workings of 1816-21, it is marked on the 1867 Bedford Estate Map and was cut and partly blocked by the 1933 Morwellham Power Station leat.

Lode 10b - Good Luck copper work, 1718

(lease in DRO); trial by Canal Company 1816.

Worked on in a westerly direction from the medieval Lobscombe road into Waterhall Wood, with a short gunnis on a 45 degree northerly underlie. Overburden has been removed for some distance further west and occasional small lodeback pits continue westwards as far as the Tavistock Canal Incline. An adit from the side of the former road was partly cleared in the 1980s by Colin West of the TMG. A large pit alongside the Canal Incline 200m to the west was dug onto the back of the lode when it was rediscovered during the incline's construction in 1816.

Lode 10c - Probably Morwellham Parks Tinwork; 1566, 1578

Christian-Ann copper work; DRO Leases 1718, 1724, 1743
Possibly worked by Canal Company 1816-21
Part of Wheal Russell sett by 1867

It is uncertain whether this was worked after 1743, as the Endsleigh Carriage Drive of 1813 blocks off the drainage from the adit.