Wheal Anna Maria – a copper and arsenic mine – covered 3.2 hectares and had over 6,850 cubic metres of arsenic flues!
It was named after the Duchess of Bedford!
Her main workings were on the ‘Main Lode‘ (the largest sulphide deposit in southwest England).

When its rich copper waned, Devon Great Consols became the largest arsenic mine in the world because the margins of the copper-rich lode were dominated by arsenopyrite.

In 1860 the copper lode at Anna Maria was up to 45 feet wide and yielding up to 80 tons per fathom, but by around 1880 the copper boom was over. Thankfully, arsenic production sustained the mine into the 1900s, until the company folded.
Arsenic ore, unlike copper ore, was refined on site using the ‘calcination’ process – and at Wheal Anna Maria they yielded over 72,000 tons of refined arsenic! – Whoop!

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Elevation 80 m

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Wednesday 5 November

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Max wind speed: 30.0 km/h

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Location: Gulworthy, West Devon, Devon, South West England, England, United Kingdom

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Wheal Anna Maria Calciners Complex

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