Situated alongside the River Tamar on the farthest edge of West Devon, Gawton was worked predominantly from 1846 as an Arsenic mine although it had begun as a copper mine solely powered by water alone. Interruptions in the water supply meant that the surface buildings were completely rebuilt in 1890 when the arsenic refinery was added. The works were taken over by Devon Great Consols in 1895, the mine closed in 1902.
The site includes: limekilns, a chimney stack and flue, a count house, washing and crushing plants, two Brunton calciners, a cooperage, dam, reservoir, engine house and chimney, a boiler house, smithy or manager’s house, refinery, quay, storage buildings and large areas of waste tips. The flue runs for several hundred metres up an extremely steep hillside and is well over 2m high in places with walls in excess of 0.7m wide.
There is a tall, leaning, well preserved chimney. Falconer described it as ‘this prominent stack, whose pronounced slant is said to be due to the cement on the south side drying out before that of the north when it was built in the 1890s, terminates the longest and most impressive arsenic flue in the country‘.
The spoil heaps are a major feature in the landscape and are estimated to hold over 124,000 tons of material. To the west are the remains of the steam powered crushing, jigging and buddling plant with associated waste and a refinery which as a group are an important survival.
The old quay was used to bring local limestone by barge from Plymouth to the limekilns, one being an early kiln with two later additions, which supplied lime for local agriculture.
Source: Historic England
