page_title: Wheal Martyn
section_title: Clay works
hierarchical_section_title: Wheal Martyn / Clay works
caption_attribution_description: English: Wheal Martyn - the dry The inside of the drying shed, known as a "dry". The floor in the foreground has been lifted to show the underlying flues through which the hot gases passed.
context_page_description: The Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum is a museum of china clay mining, at Carthew, on the B3274 road about 2 miles north of St Austell in Cornwall, England. A Victorian clay works has been preserved, and there is an exhibition building.
context_section_description: In order to pump clay slurry from the pit, which is some distance from a source of water, a system of iron rods transmits power, by a reciprocating motion, from a waterwheel of diameter 35 feet (11 m), made at Charlestown Foundry in the 1880s. The waterwheel was in use until about 1940, and was restored in 1976.
  The slurry pump, used to pump slurry around the site, is powered by a waterwheel of diameter 18 feet (5.5 m), built about 1902.
  There are areas that were used for thickening the clay: settling pits, with a sloping floor, where the clay settled for several days until it had about 12% solids; settling tanks, where the clay reached about 30% solids in two to three months; the pan kiln, or "dry", where clay was heated from below by gases from coal-fired furnaces, and dried in one to three days, depending on the distance from the fire end. Adjacent is the linhay, where about 1000 tons of clay could be stored; from here it was taken away to the customer.
caption: The dry. Part of the floor has been lifted to show the space through which the hot gases passed.
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