# Ancient Web: Wheal Buller Recorded the Rescue of a Cornish Mine House Guy Mackenzie's 2003 account of Wheal Buller preserves local mining history and a candid first-person record of saving a ruined Cornish count house. 2026-10-17 :: Switchboard Tech Services ![Ancient Web: Wheal Buller Recorded the Rescue of a Cornish Mine House](https://switchboardtechservices.com/static/images/defaults/articles.webp) Part of the [Ancient Web Collection](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-collection/). Not every old web preservation project exists to save a webpage. Sometimes the webpage is what survives after somebody saves a building. [Visit the Wheal Buller Project](https://www.whealbullerproject.co.uk/). The Wheal Buller site tells the story of a Cornish copper and tin mine and the damaged Count House and Mine Captain's House near Redruth. It is also a personal memoir of a frustrating rescue. The owner of the account, Guy Mackenzie, describes first seeing the ruin in 1992 and purchasing it at auction, despite discovering almost immediately how expensive—and literally unstable—the undertaking would become. The [mine history](https://www.whealbullerproject.co.uk/mine.html) traces operations beginning in 1819, a major rise in production by 1825, closure in 1836, and reopening in 1848. Later mining involved steam engines, copper, and tin. The page gives a total of 141,707 tons of copper ore produced between 1819 and 1875 and cites specialist mining histories and a Cornwall archaeological report. Its dated sources provide a useful trail beyond the webmaster's prose. ## The rescue was harder than the auction In a [first-person account dated November 2003](https://www.whealbullerproject.co.uk/project.html), Mackenzie remembers piles of rubbish around the building, missing roof timbers, stolen fittings, and a large wall collapse shortly after he bought it. His sister eventually purchased the site to keep the restoration effort alive. The account then becomes an unusually detailed record of local planning: consultations with archaeologists, conservation organizations and local government, a planning committee vote in March 1994, and protracted negotiations over a Section 106 agreement. Mackenzie clearly disagreed with how officials handled the application. This is his perspective on the dispute, not an independently adjudicated finding about the council. His sister ultimately sold the property. The buildings were later restored by new owners, and the [Count House page](https://www.whealbullerproject.co.uk/counthouse.html) records the changed appearance of the place. The current homepage stresses that the properties are privately owned and asks visitors to respect the owners' privacy. The whole site is a small museum of the work behind restoration. It preserves dates, names, photographs, engineering traces, a failed ownership plan, and the satisfaction of seeing the building saved anyway. A polished heritage leaflet might tell us the Count House was restored. Mackenzie's website explains what it felt like to nearly give up. [Read the complete rescue narrative](https://www.whealbullerproject.co.uk/project.html). Part of the [Ancient Web Collection](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-collection/). - Categories: [Ancient Web](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/categories/ancient-web/) - Tags: [#Architecture](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/architecture/), [#ancientweb](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/ancientweb/), [#historicpreservation](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/historicpreservation/), [#cornwall](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/cornwall/), [#mining](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/mining/) [Articles RSS](https://switchboardtechservices.com/feeds/articles.xml "Subscribe using an RSS reader") --- Canonical URL: https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-wheal-buller-project-recorded-the-rescue-of-a-cornish-mine-house/ Language: en-us Content type: article Author: Switchboard Tech Services Published: 2026-10-17T14:29:31+00:00 Modified: 2026-10-18T21:05:03.142792+00:00 Description: Wheal Buller Project combines mine statistics, architectural history, photographs, and the difficult planning story behind the restoration of a Redruth landmark.