The Basset mines were to the south of
Camborne in the parish of
Illogan, on the North west side of
Carn Brea. The company was formed in 1896 when six different mining setts that had been operated from the 1830s were amalgamated. The
South Wheal Frances, West Wheal Basset and Wheal Basset Mines were all worked for copper in the 18th and 19th centuries. South Wheal Frances adjoins the West Wheal Basset to the north, Wheal Basset to the east and Grenville United to the southwest. South Wheal Frances was named for
Frances Basset the only child of
Francis Basset (1757–1835), first Lord de Dunstanville and Basset. West Wheal Basset was started as a copper mine in 1835. Sixty years later, as part of Basset Mines, it employed 300 men, 90 women and 30 boys. Wheal Basset is another of the mines that have "Basset" in their name, after the
Basset family of
Tehidy. Between 1815 and 1900 it produced 94,200 tons of 2.5% copper ore and 13,178 tons of
black tin. : South Condurrow/Wheal Granville, West Wheal Basset,
South Frances, Wheal Uny Most of the shallow workings were exhausted in the 1820s and 1830s. Steam-powered pumps were used to keep the mines dry as the shafts were sunk deeper. By the 1850s the mines employed several thousand men, women and children. The setts that became the Basset Mines were most profitable in the 1850s and 1860s, extracting copper. Production was cut back in the late 1860s when the price of copper declined, and some mines went below the copper lodes for tin. The tin deposits were deeper and the ores harder to dress than copper, and profits were lower. The
Great Flat Lode was reached around 1872–74. This is a large tin deposit to the south of Carn Brea that is tilted at an average angle of about 32 degrees. Most lodes tilt at 60 degrees or more so the lode is relatively flat, hence the name. The Wheal Basset stamps engine house was built in 1868, with an unusual configuration of two separate
beam engines. The new stamps at the West Basset Mine were made by the
Tuckingmill Foundry. The settling and buddling floor was opened in 1875. An additional buddle floor opened in 1892. Production of tin steadily grew in the second half of the 19th century, and by the 1880s had overtaken copper. When the old part of the Wheal Basset sett was stopped, flooding from the mine affected West Basset and West Wheal Frances and old Wheal Basset pumping engine was kept working. A massive pumping engine house was built at Pascoe's Shaft at South Wheal Frances. It held an engine, the largest that the St Austell Foundry ever built, that was started in 1888. The South Wheal Frances company reorganised as South Frances United Mines in 1892. South Frances United included South Wheal Frances and West Wheal Basset, which had been running at a loss for several years. Additional buddles and Cornish frames were erected at West Basset in 1892. ==Combined operation==