Newquay’s lead and silver workings on Mount Wise, above the town.
Mount Wise is the hillside above central Newquay. The town’s lead and silver mine stood here, with a shaft, count house and miners’ cottages recorded along Mount Wise Road. The 2003 urban survey places its working period around 1790–1860.
The mine is also recorded as Lehenver. Its drainage adit discharged at Towan Beach, while the survey describes Newquay’s lead and silver ores crossing the Gannel for smelting near Crantock.
The former Jewson’s yard and nearby cottages help orient the modern reader. They do not establish the exact boundary of the old underground workings.
Sources
https://newquayplan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/csus_newquay_report.pdf https://www.mindat.org/loc-216044.html
Connected subjects
Read on
- The Mine Beneath Mount Wise: Putting Newquay’s Lead and Silver Back on the Map
A mine beneath a familiar view, children whose wages went straight home, and a hillside that kept finding new jobs after the digging stopped.
- The Smelter on the Other Side of the Gannel
Ore from Newquay crossed the Gannel to be processed near Crantock. A forgotten works connects the town’s mines to the opposite bank.
- When Ships Sailed Up the Gannel
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- The Harbour That Would Have Turned Towan Head Into an Island
Meet the man behind Newquay’s unfinished harbour, follow the cargoes that made it worth attempting, and imagine the town that might have grown around it.
- Porth Island Before Newquay: Furnaces, Roundhouses and a Chieftain’s Grave
Porth Island held a defended settlement and an ironworking industry long before Newquay grew around it. Later storytellers supplied a Danish chieftain.