Great Wheal Eleanor

Overview

A tin mine on the north-east slope of Easdon Down near North Bovey, worked by the Great Wheal Eleanor Tin Mining Company from 1874 to reopen a medieval openwork; its 40-foot wheel drove stamps and pumps until the mine was abandoned by 1884.

History

Great Wheal Eleanor lies on the north-east slope of Easdon Down, about a kilometre from North Bovey. A company was formed in 1874 to rework an older tin mine, a linear openwork about 350 metres long thought to date from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, and the Great Wheal Eleanor Tin Mining Company sank new shafts in its floor. Its promoters made much of the water supply, claiming in 1875 that water alone would do all the work without engines or coal.

A 40-foot waterwheel, fed from a reservoir 70 metres to the south-west, drove 16 heads of stamps and flat rods running along the openwork to Engine Shaft, and a steam stamping mill added 16 more. The mine had an office, smithy, drying house, carpenter's shop, stables and buddles. In 1876 it raised 3 tons of black tin worth £129; the next year a lode 20 fathoms down Engine Shaft was assayed at 33 pounds of black tin to the ton, and output rose to 10.8 tons in 1878. By 1880 fifteen people from the village worked there, but output fell to 5 tons in 1881 and 2 tons in 1882, and by 1884 the mine was abandoned. The wheelhouse, with its arched tail race, survives as the mine's most impressive remain, among boggy settling pits and the faint ruins of other buildings.

Geology

A tin lode in the Dartmoor granite, worked first by an openwork about 350 metres long.

Workings

A medieval openwork with 19th-century shafts (Engine Shaft, New Shaft); a 40 ft waterwheel driving 16 stamps and flat rods, a steam stamping mill with 16 more, a reservoir and buddles.

Closure

Abandoned by 1884 after output fell from 10.8 tons in 1878 to 2 tons in 1882.

What remains

The wheelhouse survives with its arched tail race; other buildings are barely discernible.

The 40 ft wheelhouse, reservoir, settling pits and building platforms, and the openwork.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Recorded claims

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

• Operated by the Great Wheal Eleanor Tin Mining Company from 1874 until closed by 1884. ^1,2
• In 1876 3 tons of black tin were extracted, rising to 10.8 tons in 1878, then falling to 5 tons in 1881 and 2 tons in 1882. ^1,2
• By 1880 fifteen people were employed at the mine. ^1,2
• A 40 ft waterwheel ran 16 heads of stamps and flat rods to Engine Shaft. ¹
• A Great Wheal Eleanor tin plan is dated to abandonment in 1880. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) Great Wheal Eleanor — Dartmoor Explorations
2. (secondary) Easdon Down — Legendary Dartmoor
3. (primary) BGS mine plan: Wheal Eleanor Great, tin ore (abandoned 1880) — British Geological Survey

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