jamiegaquinn
Devon Great Consols
Taken on a fieldtrip to Devon Great Consols Mine near Tavistock a couple of weeks back, It was my first visit. The spoil heaps have been unvegetated for about a century now, which tells you how toxic they must still be!! I think it looks a bit Ayers Rock like. It really is a very alien landscape!
The site is located in the Tamar Valley on the Devon side of the river. Devon Great Consols is a consolidation of five adjacent mines which were worked for copper and arsenic in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At its peak, Devon Great Consols employed around 1,300 people. The mines were named mostly after the shareholders or their wives – Wheal Maria, Wheal Fanny, Wheal Anna-Maria, Wheal Josiah and Wheal Emma. The site covers 67 hectares and had the largest sulphide lode in the west of England.
It closed for good in 1930. These days, of course, a site could not be left like this, so Hemerdon, for example, will be left in a much better state once extraction has finished.
Devon Great Consols
Taken on a fieldtrip to Devon Great Consols Mine near Tavistock a couple of weeks back, It was my first visit. The spoil heaps have been unvegetated for about a century now, which tells you how toxic they must still be!! I think it looks a bit Ayers Rock like. It really is a very alien landscape!
The site is located in the Tamar Valley on the Devon side of the river. Devon Great Consols is a consolidation of five adjacent mines which were worked for copper and arsenic in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At its peak, Devon Great Consols employed around 1,300 people. The mines were named mostly after the shareholders or their wives – Wheal Maria, Wheal Fanny, Wheal Anna-Maria, Wheal Josiah and Wheal Emma. The site covers 67 hectares and had the largest sulphide lode in the west of England.
It closed for good in 1930. These days, of course, a site could not be left like this, so Hemerdon, for example, will be left in a much better state once extraction has finished.