We would like to thank the National Trust for allowing us to place this cache.
Please be aware of livestock and take care of the cliff edges and mine workings.
The given coordinates are for the old Wheal Hermon mine. Wheal Hermon is the oldest mine in Cornwall to appear by name on a map, in about 1560. The mine was presumably being worked some time before this date and work continued, on and off, until 1976.
Remains of buildings and the lower adit are visible on the beach below the given coordinates, and extensive workings are visible on the cliffs and hillside.
Several of the adits open onto the coastal path, but these are quite dangerous to explore. There are open shafts inside the adits, plus large amounts of loose rock (deads) suspended above them.
The entrance to one of the adits.
There is extensive stoping from these adits - a technique where rock is removed, in this case vertically above the adit. Some of these stopes have been worked to the surface, in one case only a couple of feet from one of the paths, so please take care. See here for more information on stoping.
Inside one of the adits.
And now the reason for the name of the cache.
On my way back from placing the cache, I slipped on the coastal path and broke my ankle. There was no phone reception and I only had the children and the dog with me, so we had to wait for a kind passer by to walk to higher ground and phone for help. I was eventually winched onto a Culdrose Sea King and air lifted to hospital where I spent 12 days and had my leg plated and screwed.
On the plus side, we did get to place the cache before I fell, and I saw my first wild choughs while waiting for the helicopter.
Post op x-ray.
I would like to thank the passer by, coastguard search and rescue (at least I was able to give good coordinates), the paramedic and the crew of the Sea King for rescuing me.
And now for the puzzle
West Cornwall once had several thriving mineral extraction industries, and this simple puzzle cache is based around them.
Distances inside mines were always measured in fathoms. One fathom = A feet.
In 1BE6, William Cookworthy discoved china clay for the first time in the country, at Tregonning Hill.
On the morning of Tuesday January 10 18C3 miners broke through from Wheal Owles into the workings of the flooded neighbouring Wheal Drea. As the torrent rushed into Wheal Owles it pushed the air before it, creating a great wind which blew out all the lights, plunging the terrified miners into absolute darkness. Those working on the upper levels narrowly escaped with their lives. Nineteen men and F boys were never seen again.Their remains are still entombed in the flooded workings. There is a memorial to the men who died nearby.
In 19D5, the International Tin council collapsed causing a dramatic drop in the price of tin and the collapse of the remaining cornish tin industry.
In 1J56 a man engine wa installed on Daubuz's shaft at Levant, prior to this the miners had to climb down ladders the 1600 feet or so to enter via the adit in Levant Zawn. The journey time from surface to work place was dramatically reduced. On 2Hth October 191G, the man engine was carrying a full load of miners who were returning to surface at the end of their shift. An iron strap securing the beam to the wooden rod in the shaft broke. The man engine rod fell down the upper parts of the shaft snapping in several places and carrying its human cargo of over 100 men with it. 31 were killed and many more injured.
The cache is at N50 0A.BCD W005 EF.GHJ
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