Hewas Water Mine

Overview

The last of the Hewas mines at Sticker, a small tin working at Hewas Water called Kingsdown Mine, which worked alongside Great Hewas from 1919 to 1926, said to have returned 24 tons of black tin a month, and closed with the group in 1926.

History

Hewas Water is the hamlet on the Truro to St Austell road west of Sticker, the village that grew up for the workers of Great Hewas Mine. Great Hewas, at work by the 1790s with more than 250 people in the nineteenth century, raised tin, copper, lead and a little silver, and two smaller mines to the west worked alongside it: Ventonwyn, whose stamps engine house chimney still stands on the ridge north of the road, and Hewas Water, known also as Kingsdown Mine.

Kingsdown, or Hewas Water, was the last of them. Part of the Great Hewas ground was prospected in 1913, and in 1919 Kingsdown Mine began work on four east-west lodes south-west of the Wheal Elizabeth section. It worked until 1926, and is said to have produced 24 tons of black tin a month over that time, against the 867 tons of black tin that Great Hewas United had returned in 1854 to 1860 and the 482 tons of copper ore of the old Hewas from 1821. With its closing in 1926 production in the Hewas group ended.

Geology

Four tin lodes striking east to west, south-west of the Wheal Elizabeth section of Great Hewas, in the killas south of the St Austell granite; cassiterite with quartz and chlorite.

Workings

Workings on four east-west lodes opened from 1919 on ground south-west of Great Hewas's Wheal Elizabeth section, prospected in 1913.

Closure

Closed in 1926, the last of the Hewas mines to stop; no reason is recorded.

What remains

Remnants of the working survive around SW 967 501.

Remnants of the 1919 to 1926 working around SW 967 501.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Great Hewas Mine — Kingsdown, or Hewas Water, worked with Great Hewas and is counted among the Hewas mines, the last of which closed in 1926.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• Kingsdown (Hewas Water) Mine is said to have produced 24 tons of black tin per month between 1919 and 1926. (uncertain) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• Great Hewas Mine, also known as Hewas Downs Mine or Great Hewas United and including Ventonwyn, also worked with Kingsdown or Hewas Water Mine. ¹
• Kingsdown, or Hewas Water, Mine worked from 1919 to 1926. ¹
• Kingsdown (Hewas Water) Mine is said to have produced 24 tons of black tin per month between 1919 and 1926. (uncertain) ¹
• Two smaller mines to the west of Great Hewas, Ventonwyn and Hewas Water, worked alongside it, and the last of these mines ceased production in 1926. ²
• Great Hewas was at work in the 1790s and finally closed in 1926; Great Hewas United returned 867 tons of black tin in 1854 to 1860. ^2,1
• In 1913 part of Great Hewas Mine was prospected, and work began in 1919 as Kingsdown Mine. ³
• The working centred on four lodes striking east-west to the south-west of the Wheal Elizabeth section of Great Hewas. ³
• Remnants of the working can be seen around SW 967 501. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Great Hewas United Mines and Kingsdown Mine (Hewas Water Mine), St Ewe — Mindat
2. (secondary) Sticker, Cornwall — Wikipedia
3. (secondary) Kingsdown Mine (Hewas Water Mine), Hewas Water, St Ewe — Mindat

Record created: 19 October 2026 · Last researched: 21 October 2026