King Edward Mine’s headframe is back after 92 years

For nine decades, there was a gap in the skyline above Troon. The headframe that once stood over Engine Shaft at King Edward Mine collapsed in 1934 and was never replaced. On Saturday 11 July, a crowd of volunteers, sponsors and invited guests gathered at the site to mark the moment that gap was finally filled, and to celebrate 25 years of the museum that made it happen.

The Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho KCVO OBE, presided over the occasion and unveiled a commemorative plaque.

📷Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho unveils the plaque with KEM Trustee, Graham Sowell - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

Cornwall’s best preserved mine site

King Edward Mine sits in Troon, near Camborne, and is Cornwall’s best preserved mine site. Its restored buildings act as a community hub for the Cornish Mining World Heritage area.

The museum is a charity. It collects, stewards and interprets the engineering heritage of Cornish mining with the aim of igniting curiosity, building knowledge and encouraging people of all ages and backgrounds into the UK’s growing geoscience sector.

It receives no local authority or government funding. All its income comes from opening to the public. Ten voluntary Trustees are responsible for 22 acres of mining landscape, a large number of operational mining machines and six Grade II* listed buildings.

📷Jason Thomas with his sons - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

What a headframe actually does

A headframe is the structural framework that stands directly above an underground mine shaft. Its main job is to lift mined ore to the surface so it can be routed into mills or processing plants. It also lets miners enter and leave the workings safely, directs fresh air down into the mine, dispels hazardous gases and stabilises the entrance of the shaft itself.

King Edward Mine was developed in 1897 as a fully operational training mine by Camborne School of Mines, which used it as a teaching facility for more than a century.

A new headframe went up above Engine Shaft at the turn of the 20th century. It had four compartments, providing access for miners and materials, pumping water from 40 fathoms deep and supplying ventilation to the workings below. It collapsed in 1934.

📷KEM Engineering Volunteers - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

A headframe with a long history of its own

Replacing it had always been the ambition. The opportunity did not arrive until 2023, when the owner of one of the last remaining wooden headframes in Cornwall asked the museum whether it would take on the renovation.

That headframe was originally built at Geevor and erected at Cligga Head, near St Agnes, in 1962. It was later moved to Nangiles in the Wheal Jane area, then on to Wheal Concord at Skinners Bottom in 1980. That site went on to become the home of Cornish Firewood, owned by Jason Thomas, and it is the Thomas family who offered the long-term loan that allowed the structure to be restored and installed at Troon.

📷KEM Front of House Volunteers - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

Thousands of hours of volunteer labour

The work involved dismantling and cleaning the structure, retaining as much of the original fabric as possible for reuse, repairing and installing timbering, concreting foundations and reassembling everything to its historic design.

Museum volunteers, led by Trustee Graham Sowell, laboured for thousands of hours to reach February, when the headframe was re-erected and towered over Troon for the first time in 92 years.

Among the team was Mike May, an apprentice at Geevor in 1962 who helped build the original headframe. His expertise proved invaluable.

“On behalf of KEM’s Trustees, I would like to thank Jason Thomas and his family for the long-term loan of this important piece of Cornish mining heritage, which now helps us to highlight the relationship between mining underground and the winding mechanism and ore processing in the mill, which our museum so aptly demonstrates,” said Chair of the Trustees, John McDonnell.

“From all those who supported the initial seed funding through our GoFundMe page and the Association of Industrial Archaeology for its generous grant to our many supportive sponsors and wonderful KEM volunteers who have achieved something truly remarkable for Cornish mining heritage in erecting the first headframe for 50 years, we convey our immense gratitude to them for making this possible and for helping us to ensure a sustainable future for our much-loved museum as we celebrate our quarter century.”

📷KEM Team and Guests with Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

The Cornish companies behind the lift

A long list of Cornish firms supplied services to the project. Duchy Demolition dismantled the headframe. Devoran Metals supplied foundation steel and Tim Sullivan handled foundation design, with Courtney King Plant Hire on foundation construction and Highway Plant on equipment hire. Mylor Scaffolding Services provided scaffolding, Gordon Long carried out excavation and St Ives Steeplejacks fitted the lightning conductor. Macsalvors supplied an enormous crane to lift the restored headframe into place, free of charge.

The commemorative plaque unveiled on the day reads:

On completion of this headgear restoration, this plaque was unveiled by

Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho KCVO, OBE, CStJ. Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall on 11th July 2026

King Edward Mine Museum

📷KEM Volunteers, Mike May and Roy Morton - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

Visiting, and volunteering

King Edward Mine Museum is open until the end of October on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. School visits are by appointment.

Volunteers guide visitors and contribute to the preservation and development of the site, and the museum is now looking for new people to take on flexible estate administration and shop or reception roles for a few hours a week. Anyone interested can sign up through the museum’s volunteering page.

More about the site and its history is on the King Edward Mine Museum website.

📷Perran Moon MP - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

📷CEO of Cornish Metals, Don Turvey - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller

📷KEM Headframe - Image Credit KEM and Toby Weller