Wheal Drea

Overview

A St Just copper and tin mine worked independently from the 1790s before joining the Wheal Owles group, whose own long-flooded old workings caused the catastrophic 1893 Wheal Owles disaster when neighbouring miners broke into them by mistake.

History

Wheal Drea worked copper and tin independently for some years in the earlier part of the 19th century before being incorporated into the neighbouring Wheal Owles group around 1859. Its engine shaft was being deepened in 1871 when it was found to intersect three lodes at the 160-fathom level, and it was probably at Wheal Drea, in 1881, that Wheal Owles first introduced the Champion rock drill to its mines, the compressor powered by an old waterwheel on the Boscean side of the stream. By this point Wheal Drea's own earlier workings, abandoned and flooded, lay directly alongside ground still being worked from Wheal Owles' Cargodna section. On the morning of 10 January 1893, Cargodna's miners, working from a survey that failed to show how close they had come, broke straight through into Wheal Drea's flooded old workings; the inrush of water and the blast of air it drove ahead of it killed nineteen men and a boy in the darkness, in what became one of Cornwall's best-remembered mining disasters. Wheal Owles as a whole worked on until 1884.

Geology

Tin and copper lodes of the St Just district — the engine shaft was found to intersect three lodes at the 160-fathom level when deepened in 1871.

Workings

Worked independently before 1859, then as part of the Wheal Owles group; its engine shaft intersected three lodes at 160 fathoms when deepened in 1871.

Closure

The earlier workings, abandoned and flooded, lay directly alongside ground still being worked when the deepening of 1871 struck three lodes.

What remains

Its dumps in the Kenidjack Valley remain a locality for amethyst and nail-head siderite specimens; its underground workings, long flooded, still hold the remains of the men killed in the 1893 Wheal Owles disaster.

Related mines

• Boscean Mine — Boscean's water had flooded Wheal Drea's workings before the 1893 Wheal Owles breakthrough.
• Wheal Edward — Wheal Edward's workings were directly linked underground to the flooded Wheal Drea, forcing its own 1893 closure.
• Wheal Owles — Wheal Drea's own long-flooded workings caused the catastrophic 1893 Wheal Owles disaster when miners broke into them by mistake.

Disasters & major incidents

• Wheal Owles flooding disaster
  10 January 1893 · Flooding / Inundation · 20 fatalities
  Miners broke through into the flooded, long-abandoned workings of Wheal Drea, trapping and drowning twenty men and boys underground.

Recorded claims

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

• Wheal Drea worked independently for some years in the earlier 19th century before being incorporated into the Wheal Owles group around 1859; its engine shaft, deepened in 1871, was found to intersect three lodes at 160 fathoms. ¹
• Wheal Drea's own long-abandoned and flooded old workings were the ones Wheal Owles' Cargodna miners broke into by mistake on 10 January 1893, the inrush of water and air killing nineteen men and a boy. ²
• The British Geological Survey's mine plan catalogue holds scanned plans of Wheal Drea on its own (MP24811), a Wheal Owles longitudinal section of Wheal Drea dated 1869 (MP24804), plans and sections of Cargodna lode and Wheal Drea drawn for Wheal Owles (MP24782, MP24785, MP24794, MP24795, MP24812), and a vertical longitudinal section of Wheal Drea and Wheal Edward (MP24452). ³
• On 10 January 1893 Wheal Owles' miners broke through into the flooded workings of the neighbouring Wheal Drea; water rushing in drove the air ahead of it, blowing out the lights, and nineteen men and a boy died, their bodies never recovered. Wheal Owles had been flooded by water from Boscean mine which had broken into Wheal Drea, so that the pool afterwards stretched through practically three mines, a mile and a half from the sea to beneath the Wesleyan chapel at St Just Churchtown. ⁴

Sources

1. (secondary) Wheal Drea (Buddlepit Mine Database) — Buddlepit Mine Database
2. (secondary) Wheal Drea, Cornwall (Cornwall Calling) — Cornwall Calling
3. (primary) Mine plans: Plan of Wheal Drea (MP24811); Wheal Owles longitudinal section of Wheal Drea 1869 (MP24804); Plan of Wheal Owles and Wheal Drea (MP24782); section, Wheal Drea and Wheal Edward (MP24452) (BGS Mine Plans catalogue) — British Geological Survey
4. (secondary) Wheal Owles — Wikipedia

Record created: 31 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026