The Wherry mine was situated 240 yards out to sea at Wherry Town, on the southern edge of Penzance. The shaft was sunk on a mineralized dyke of 'elvan' (quartz-feldspar porphyry) which ran parallel to the shore and exposed only during low tides.
The mine was sunk by Thomas Curtis, a poor 57-year old miner who devoted three years from about 1778 to the effort, working during the summer to build a wooden coffer 25 inches square and 20 feet tall to exclude the water before sinking a shaft. Curtis died in 1791 by which time the mine had begun making a good profit.
During operation a steam engine on land operated pumps by a system of flat rods carried on a trestle bridge to the coffer.
The mine was destroyed in 1798 when an American ship, adrift in a storm, demolished the trestles and coffer, later efforts to re-open the mine failed - the Wherry mine was almost certainly the only mine ever to have been destroyed by a shipwreck!
Ref.:
Minerals of Cornwall & Devon, p38-39 (1987).
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UK OS Grid Reference: SW470294
Map Reference: 50°6'36"N , 5°32'20"W
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Mineral List:7 entries listed. 7 valid minerals.
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