Dartmoor National Park Authority

Mineral Extraction
The working of tin on Dartmoor covers a 800 year period and has left behind the most striking impression on the landscape. Although the written records for tin mining go back to the 12th century it is very likely that tin was being extracted in prehistoric times.

The earliest medieval workings involved streamworking where alluvial tin from stream and river beds was extracted by a process similar to gold panning. This process has left behind characteristic spoil heaps in the form of small stones, some are arranged in roughly parallel lines with retaining stone walls.

By the 15th century the below ground tin lodes were being worked by opencast working leaving behind deep V-shaped gullies usually running east-west.

Associated with these early workings are tin mills; rectangular stone buildings situated close to streams which fed leats (artificial water channels) to bring the water for waterwheels which drove the machinery to crush the tin ore and to work the bellows used for smelting the tin.

By the 18th century more sophisticated techniques were being used, with water and leats providing the source of power for large wheelpits situated close to mine shafts. Also associated with this period of hard rock mining are a variety of mine buildings; the last working mine on Dartmoor closed just before the Second World War.

Copper, lead and iron have all also been extracted from around the edge of the Moor. In many instances these mines, which date from the 18th and 19th century, produced more than one product, and their archaeological remains are similar to those associated with tin working – with the addition of the engine houses used to pump the shafts free of water.

Granite Working
Dartmoor granite has supplied the needs of local people for buildings, bridges, crosses, walls and everyday items such as troughs and millstones from prehistoric times to the present day.

Quarrying
It was not until the 19th century that granite was actually quarried; up until then the surface stone, moorstone, was used. Several large quarries were worked in the nineteenth century, the best known are those at Haytor which provided granite for London Bridge and the British Museum. The quarries had their own granite tramway with wagons containing the quarried granite which were pulled by horses along a granite track down to the Stover canal.

Peat and Clay
Dartmoor’s peat has been dug as a source of domestic fuel for many hundreds of years. In the 18th and 19th century it was worked on a commercial basis and the long rectangular strips left by this workings are found on the high moor.

China clay is a component of decaying granite and the extraction and processing of it is a industry well over 150 years old. It is used in the manufacture of paper and ceramics. It continues today and dominates the landscape of south west Dartmoor with its substantial spoil heaps, pits and pools.

Other Industrial Activities
A number of other more unusual industrial activities have also taken place on Dartmoor.

A gunpowder factory near Postbridge was established in the mid 19th century and produced powder mainly for the Cornish slate quarries. The invention of dynamite in the later 19th century resulted in the demise of the works.

Another curious enterprise was an iceworks established in 1875 near Sourton Tor, where its impressive pond like earthworks still survive. Long rectangular hollows were cut in the hillside to receive water from a nearby spring, when frozen the ice was taken to an insulated underground building and transported to Plymouth to supply the fishing industry during the spring and early summer.