GREAT WORK MINE
"The very ancient and important Great Work Mine worked in the saddle of high land between the summits of Godolphin and Tregonning Hills, about 4 miles WNW of Helston. (There is a picture No 41) This photograph was probably taken towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the mine was still working on a small scale, and shows the summit of Godolphin Hill in the distance.  The ruins of the pumping engine house and stack on the Leeds Shaft, seen near the left-hand edge of the picture, can still be seen for many miles around as they are 400 ft above sea level.  A Hamilton Jenkin has recorded that there are references to the mine as early as 1540 and as long ago as 1584 it was employing at least 3000 persons continually."
From: "Mining in Cornwall Volume Two" by J Trounson, Dyllansow Truran 1980.

WHEAL VOR
"Wheal Vor, a mile north of Breage (and 3 miles north-west of Helston) was one of the greatest and richest tin mines ever discovered in Cornwall; at one time its output amounted to about a third of all the tin being mined in the county. Work probably commenced there in the fifteenth century and there were several different periods of activity, the greatest being in the years 1812--47.  In 1906 a new company was formed to drain the mine and explore the ground further eastward.  The work was centred at Borlase's Shaft, using one of the first electrically driven sinking pumps to be employed in Cornwall, power being generated by the Company's own steam-driven plant.  The photograph shows the surface equipment as it then appeared. (Picture 43)
From: "Mining in Cornwall Volume Two" by J Trounson, Dyllansow Truran 1980.