National Trust

91077*0

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Description:  High up on the steeper bracken-covered north-east facing slopes of Trendrine Hill, centred at SW48003900, are the surface remains of early industrial mining activities (I.C.S. Industrial Archive SW43NE/34) (see Fig. 7). These consist of long adits dug into the hillside and large waste mounds. They follow 2 parallel lodes which run NNE-SSW into the slope.
Documentary evidence records that these mine workings, called Wheal Music, are relatively early in date and were opened up c 1789, became idle by 1836 and were abandoned completely by 1850 (Hamilton Jenkin 1961, p.17 and 48). The initial workings here tapped a rich source of tin some 40 fathoms into the hillslope and later working went even deeper (ibid., 17).
There are two main adits following lode I; both over 3.0 m deep with their entrances at least 12 m into the slopes (see Fig. 8a). 45 metres upslope from the uppermost adit is a large circular raised platform; the remains of a whim (91078). This stands c 2.5 m high and is partly stone revetted and in its centre the whim stone, the 'mellior', lies in situ. This whim stone is a dressed piece of granite; roughly trapezoidal in shape, measuring 1.0 m long and 0.75 at its widest and 0.45 m at its narrowest. In the centre of the stone is a drilled hole; 10 cm in diameter centred in a bevelled circle c 0.52 cm in diameter. Next to the platform is a filled-in shaft.
The presence of such sites indicates that miners had found or were prospecting for tin lodes deep into the hill (see schematic transverse section Fig.8,b).
(Nowakowski, J. 1986).

Country:  England

County:  Cornwall

District:  Penwith

Parish:  Zennor

Grid Reference:   SW481388

Map Reference:  [EPSG:27700] 148100, 38850

Period/Subject:  1789 - 1836 - ADIT

Identifiers: 
[ADS] Depositor Id: 91077*0
[ADS] Associated Id: HBSMR Id: MNA103818
[ADS] Import RCN: NTSMR-MNA103818

People Involved: 
[Publisher] National Trust