Gallery 17 - Pendeen to Sennen Cove
Botallack Arsenic Works
The remains of one of the finest surviving Arsenic-refining works in Britain with remarkable extant flues
and a large double bayed labyrinth. An arch carrying the flue passes between the two main sections.
Tin produced in Cornish mines frequently contained arsenic and sulphur. These elements were detrimental to
smelted tin and therefore had to be removed by roasting - this was done in burning houses or calciners ,
the vapour given off condensed on the walls
of long stone tunnels called labyrinths.
The miners then scraped the deposits of the chamber walls.
Ref: 568
Date: 22/11/2014
Location: SW 3642.3322