Wheal Jane Mine is situated in the parish of Baldhu. Mining in this area can be traced as far back as the mid 1700’s. These and the next few pages are new with more content and information about the mine.
During the early 1860’s East Wheal Jane was born from the amalgamation of several smaller mines, the mine was rich in minerals. By 1884 mining in the area came to an end, the mines had been closed. The Tin price at the time was low and much investment was required to modernise the mines. In this period of operation over 3,000 tons of black tin, 740 tons copper ore, along with significant quantities of Lead, Silver, Zinc and Arsenic had been produced.
In 1906 a new company Falmouth Consolidated Mines was formed and Wheal Jane and its neighbours were re-opened. The mines were considerably wet at depth, the pumping costs were very high even though electric pumps were used. After significant investment the mine closed again after 10 years with only a small amount of production forthcoming. Over the next decades as recovery techniques improved many of the mine dumps were re-worked for their Tin content.
Consolidated Gold Fields investigated the property in the 1960’s and the mine was re-opened in 1969 at an estimated cost of £6 million. A new shaft (No2) was sunk whilst Clemows Shaft was also deepened and re-conditioned. Underground new tunnels were dug and services installed, on the surface a new mill and crusher house were built.
In the following years the mine was taken over by Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ). Production ceased in 1978 when the adjoining Mount Wellington mine was closed and pumping costs increased dramatically. Production resumed in 1980, then came 1985 and the Tin Price crash caused by the end of the International Tin Agreement.
Wheal Jane never recovered and the unprofitable mine was finally closed in 1991. The pumps were turned off in the following year.
The production of the modern mine was impressive, the new mill gave a 70% recovery from the low grade ore.