Wheal Unity Wood (Tolgullow United Mine; West Poldice Mine), Chacewater, Cornwall, England, UKi

Regional Level Types
Wheal Unity Wood (Tolgullow United Mine; West Poldice Mine)	Mine (Abandoned)
Chacewater	Civil Parish
Cornwall	County
England	Constituent Country
UK	Country

Unity Wood Mine extends over a strike length of approximately 1 km extending in an east-north-easterly direction from Zimapan in the west through the southern section of the woods known as Unity Wood to its eastern limit in the vicinity of a farm known as St Neot.

The most visible remains of the mine are two engine houses in the vicinity of Magor's Shaft. These comprise a large pumping engine house that worked Magor's Shaft and a smaller rotative engine house that appears to have done multiple duties of stamping and winding. Unusually, this engine house is not in an alignment that would have allowed it to easily wind from Magor's Shaft, but instead, it is believed to have wound from a shaft some way to the south-west of it.

A significant dump is still to be found to the south-west of Magor's pumping engine house that will yield specimens with diligent searching. An accessible dump of Harper's Shaft lies approximately 100 metres to the north-east of Magor's Shaft beside the rough track and again specimens are to be found especially around the shaft collar.

The footpath down the hill from the dumps at Magor's Shaft leads to an area in a corner of the woods where there is a shaft and some dump material, though this is mostly barren.

The section of the mine that lies within the woodland itself has several shafts, the majority of these are now choked with others having been made safe. Reed's Shaft however, is easily found on the slope opposite the pond, above the track that runs along the lower edge of the woods. This has been caged but samples are easily found in the material where the wall surrounding the shaft collar has fallen out.

There are also extensive ancient surface workings marking the courses of lodes on the site. Whilst collecting in here is challenging, applying diligence and patience can yield some extremely good specimens.

Page 79 in the printed version (page 92 in the pdf available on-line) of the [Redruth Area] Mineral Tramways Conservation Management Plan has an excellent map of the shafts in Unity Wood. The document is of course a valuable resource for other mines.

Geochronology

Geologic Time				Rocks, Minerals and Events
Phanerozoic
	Paleozoic
		Permian
			Guadalupian	ⓘ Major polymetallic mineralization ~270 Ma Cornwall, England, UK
			Cisuralian	ⓘ Porphyry dikes intruded (latest age) ~275 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Greisenization (latest age) ~280 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Porphyry dikes intruded (earliest age) ~280 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Formation of metallized pegmatites ~285 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Greisenization (earliest age) ~285 Ma Cornwall, England, UK ⓘ Emplacement of major plutons ~295 Ma Cornwall, England, UK

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References