I remember when......

This is the 12th of the ‘Probus Memories’ articles taken from a small handbook produced by the Probus Old Cornwall Society in 1982.

Mr W. T. Hawken Rowse

My grandfather, Thomas Rowse, came to Geen Mills in 1865. There was a 30 acre grass farm with a mill worked by two waterwheels, fed by the leat for Ladock river. There were 14 working horses to pull the wagons, the biggest needing 4 horses and the drivers worked almost 15 hours a day! About 1900 a water turbine replaced one wheel and later a Tangye Gas engine provided power. Some of the horses were replaced by two large steam engines in 1920 and later came petrol power.

My two sisters, Kittie and Ann, were born at Geen, as I was between 1905 and 1910. We used to walk to the little Laburnum Villa school. It was a good beginners school, run by the four Pascoe sisters, Bessie, Grace, Jane and Annie.

My wife’s family also has a Probus history of over a century. Our children and since then our grandson Michael were born on Geen land so that makes five generations in the parish.

Geen Mill

Image below: An 1891 promotional advertisment for a Tangyes Gas Engine, perhaps similar to what was once in Geen Mill. For an idea of scale, note the man standing behind it on the left.

The engine was built by the Tangye Brothers of Cornwall Works, Birmingham. Hailing from Illogan, north west of Redruth, Richard Tangye and his four brothers became renown manufactuers of pumps, lifting equipment, engines and machine tools. They produced the hydraulic rams used to launch the SS Great Eastern, steam pumps, horizontal steam engines and differential pulleys. Their engines and equipment were sold across the UK and all around the world.

Sources: www.oldengine.org and www.gracesguide.co.uk/Tangyes