Walk 4 - Wheal Rose, The Poldice Plateway and Mawla

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Start the walk at Smokey Joe's Café on the Blackwater road near Scorrier; a good venue for refreshments before or after your walk.

Almost opposite the car park entrance is The Doghouse Brewery which was established in 2001 in what was once the rescue kennels at Startrax Pets' Hotel. One of the kennel blocks has been converted into a 5-barrel capacity brewhouse; its beers have a 'doggy' theme, as do the many seasonal and house brews that they produce for pubs and inns.

Turn right at the far end of the car park and walk up the road with the mine building ahead A. This is North Treskerby mine, it is on the site of an earlier mine called Trewan or Truan, which was most productive from the 1700s to about 1830. However, In 1871 two boilers were blown out five times causing the water to rise to above the 110-fathom level. This led to the building of the current engine house following the purchase of an 80" cylinder steam engine and 2 boilers at a cost of £1030, used to drain the mine. It was designed by Messrs Mitchell Mining Engineers of Redruth and was likely to have been built by a branch of the family living in St Agnes. The bob wall was 8'6"(2.6m) thick at the foundation and 6' (1.8m) at the plug door. The stack was 90' (27.4m) above the foundations and the stonework rises to a height of 62' (18.9m). The new engine did not start pumping until 12 November 1877. Over its lifetime North Treskerby produced 19,000 tons of copper ore.

Turn into the lane to the left signposted Avrisu. Passing a bungalow on the right proceed to a multiple fork in the track, take the left-hand one, passing 'The Abbots' on the left-hand side. Bear right down hill to a road which will bring you into Wheal Rose B. Turn left on the road, then almost immediately turn right into a lane by ''The Old Forge' C. The Old Forge was built around 1877 for Henry Tonkin; blacksmith to Wheal Rose and the mines. It later served as a workshop and was requisitioned during the last war by the ARP for fitting villagers with Gas Masks. Later it reverted to a smithy again and was run by Harold Williams until the late 1960s.

At the track turn right. This is the Poldice Plateway, which is popular with cyclists. This Mineral Tramroad ran from Portreath Harbour to the mines of Scorrier & St Day. It was built in 1809 and comprised of cast-iron plates pinned to granite setts carrying three ton capacity horse drawn wagons. One of the surviving passenger wagons is in the museum at Truro G and is reputed to be one of the oldest in the world having been built circa 1810 and used to carry the Directors on mine inspections. The original intention had been to build a canal but this idea was dropped. Before its construction pack-horses had been used to haul the copper to Portreath for onward shipping and smelting in South Wales, returning with Welsh coal to fuel the steam engines of the mines. The coming of the railway line through to Hayle harbour introduced competition and by about 1870 the tramroad was derelict with the tram plates being sold for scrap shortly after. In a short while you will see on the right the restored engine house of Wheal Rose D. It was on this site that one of the first steam pumping engines known as Newcomen engines was installed in Cornwall in 1725. Although invented in 1712, steam technology was not used for some years in Cornwall due to the difficulty and cost of importing coal. Keep straight on this level track, passing three gates across the track and stone signs for Lower Brigan and Wheal Plenty. On a bend after the third gate, some of the old plateway E stones can be seen underfoot. At the fourth gate, which is Mawla, the track ends at a road (in fact the plateway continues straight on for a short distance as a tarmac road).