Caradon Hill Medieval and Post-Medieval Mines

Overview

On the slopes above a medieval streamwork already ancient by 1515, three separate 19th-century mines -- Marke Valley, West Rosedown and Wheal Jenkin -- rose and fell in succession, each moving in turn to chase the same lodes their medieval predecessors had only scratched at.

History

Across the middle and lower northern slopes of Caradon Hill, on the south-eastern edge of Bodmin Moor, an exceptional depth of mining history survives spanning the medieval period to the 20th century. The earliest workings appear as a broad streamwork along the floor of Caradon Coombe, medieval in origin and named the 'Chepman Wille Worke' in a document of 1515; it exploited tin ore weathered from parent lodes and washed down into the valley floor, using controlled flows of water to flush away overburden and expose the heavier ore beneath. As it extended west, the streamwork disrupted the lower edge of an even earlier medieval field system, whose curving strip fields and lightly ridged upland 'outfield' plots survive well enough across the slopes to show clearly how arable and grazing land here was organised around, and later gave way to, the expanding mining landscape. As the valley floor's streamable tin became exhausted, extraction moved to the mineral lodes themselves, worked by shallow lode-back pits -- this phase entering the documentary record as the 'Carradon Downe Worke' in 1570, continuing into the 18th century as deeper working became possible. By the early 19th century the ground was divided between the Marke Valley Sett in the east and the West Rosedown (or Wheal Jenkin) Sett covering the rest, and from the 1820s-1830s three distinct mines rose in succession here. Marke Valley Mine's Salisbury Shaft, sunk from 1850, produced about 5,000 tons of copper ore a year by the mid-1860s at its peak, its surviving pumping engine house standing to 9 metres and its chimney to about 15 metres; when its ore quality declined, the company acquired the neighbouring West Rosedown sett in the 1870s before moving its whole operation to Wheal Jenkin in 1881, abandoning Salisbury Shaft in 1883. West Rosedown Mine, worked from a shaft sunk high on the slope in 1845 and a second sunk further downslope in 1858, remained a small operation whose dwindling production forced its closure in 1873; its surviving remains include at least five adits and a rare, largely intact flat-rod system that transferred pumping power from the lower shaft's engine up to the higher one. Wheal Jenkin, the last and largest of the three, was sunk from 1824 and by the late 1830s supported an engine house, dressing floors and horse-powered winders serving three shafts; acquired by the Marke Valley company in the 1880s, it was expanded with a new pumping engine at the re-excavated Bellingham's Shaft (1886) and a substantial ore-processing works containing at least 21 round buddles -- but despite this investment, output stayed poor and the mine closed in 1890, its abandoned 1876-7 railway trackbeds, part of the Liskeard and Caradon Railway, going into receivership in the same economic collapse. Scheduled as a nationally important monument in July 2003 across three separate protected areas, the site is valued as an excellent and rare survival spanning the medieval period to the 20th century, its buried medieval field system of particular significance for showing how closely early agriculture here was adapted to the mining landscape it would later become part of.

Geology

A medieval valley-floor tin streamwork and buried medieval field system, overlain by three successive 19th-century lode mines (Marke Valley/Salisbury Shaft, West Rosedown, Wheal Jenkin) on a series of WSW-ENE lodes.

Workings

A medieval streamwork channel, lode-back pits, the Salisbury Shaft pumping/winding engine houses, West Rosedown's flat-rod power-transfer system and five adits, and Wheal Jenkin's Bellingham's Shaft engine house with an 1880s ore-processing works of 21+ buddles.

Closure

Marke Valley Mine's Salisbury Shaft abandoned 1883 as operations moved to Wheal Jenkin; West Rosedown closed 1873; Wheal Jenkin, the last of the three, closed 1890.

What remains

Scheduled as a nationally important monument since July 2003 across three protected areas; several structures at Wheal Jenkin and Marke Valley Mine are separately listed Grade II.

A medieval streamwork channel and field-system earthworks, lode-back pits, Salisbury Shaft's pumping and winding engine houses and chimneys, West Rosedown's adits and flat-rod earthworks, and Wheal Jenkin's Bellingham's Shaft engine house, reservoirs and ore-processing works survive.

Nearby mines

• South Caradon Mine — 1.2 km SW
• Marke Valley Mine — 1.4 km NW
• Gonamena — 1.5 km SW
• Kit Hill Mine — 5.9 km E
• Redmoor Mine — 6.5 km E

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The earliest remains from ore extraction in the scheduling appear as a broad deepened channel called a streamwork along the floor of Caradon Coombe; medieval in origin and named the 'Chepman Wille Worke' in 1515, the streamwork exploited tin ore weathered from its parent lodes and accumulated in valley floor silts, disrupting the lower edges of an earlier medieval field system. ¹
• The scheduling contains three major foci of 19th century mining: in the north east is the Salisbury Shaft complex of the Marke Valley Mine, across the centre is the West Rosedown Mine, and in the west is Wheal Jenkin; by the mid-1860s Marke Valley Mine produced about 5000 tons of copper ore annually, but in the 1870s the company acquired the West Rosedown sett and in 1881 moved their centre of operations to Wheal Jenkin, abandoning Salisbury Shaft in 1883. ¹
• Wheal Jenkin retains good survivals, especially from the 1880s phase; the Bellingham's Shaft pumping engine house survives to gable height with its 1886 datestone, and the ore-processing works is compact, containing at least 21 round buddles, settling tanks, water wheel pits, dressing floors and channels, matching in detail a contemporary mine plan; despite this scale of works, output was poor and the mine closed in 1890. ¹
• The Marke Valley mine's Salisbury shaft reached 90 fathoms (165m) by 1853, requiring a 70-inch pumping engine built by William West of the St Blazey Foundry, put into action in 1856; in 1883 the Marke Valley section was abandoned and all work moved west into the Wheal Jenkin area, amalgamating with West Rosedown, with the 70-inch engine itself moved to pump from Bellingham's Shaft at Wheal Jenkin. Between 1844 and 1890 the combined mine produced 393 tons of black tin and 128,500 tons of 5.5% copper ore, making it the second-best copper producer in the district behind South Caradon. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Medieval and post-medieval tin and copper mines with medieval field system on the middle and lower northern slopes of Caradon Hill, Linkinhorne, Cornwall — AncientMonuments.uk (mirroring the Historic England scheduling record)
2. (secondary) Marke Valley Mine — Explore Cornwall

Record created: 17 September 2026 · Last researched: 17 September 2026