Wheal Friendship, just north-east of Mary Tavy, was second only in size to Devon Great Consols in the county. Copper was the main product until the 1870s, when arsenic took over; it was renamed Devon Friendship in 1880, closed in 1900 and reopened in 1907, was taken over in 1912 by Wheal Jewell and Marytavy Mines Ltd, and closed in 1925 after an arsenic price slump. John Taylor managed it from 1799, aged 19, to 1812 and again from 1817 to 1828. Reid, in his Geology of Dartmoor (1912), names it as the most important Dartmoor copper mine.
Visible remains include the arsenic calciners, condensing chambers and flues, Brenton's and Bennett's shafts, a wheelpit and flat rod of 1907, the 1912 mill, the miners' dry and an incline tramway. Much can be seen from the public footpaths along Cholwell Brook; some ground is private. The leaning chimney usually pictured at Mary Tavy belongs to Wheal Betsy, a separate mine, which was formerly North Wheal Friendship.
The pictures here are 1860s engravings by Durand-Brager in Le Tour du monde; no modern photograph of the mine site is available to us.
Sources: Devon HER MDV4185; Dartmoor Explorations, Wheal Friendship 1870s to 1950s; Rowe, Perambulation of Dartmoor p. 334; Reid, Geology of Dartmoor (1912) p. 86.
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