My latest publication has going live on the Kindle platform has given me the excuse to steer this blog in a direction I have long wanted to return to- Dartmoor Industrial History.
A Hundred Years on Dartmoor and industry
The nineteenth century was an important period in the industrial history of Dartmoor. This was an era of optimism, of resource exploitation, and of a belief in the value of ‘improvement’.
William Crossing captures these themes well in chapter three of A Hundred Years on Dartmoor, a chapter titled “Industries of the Moor”.
The Industries
The topic headings within the chapter give a quick snapshot of the main industries active in the 1800s on the Moor, here are those topics:
- Ancient pursuits
- Mining for tin, silver, lead, copper, and arsenic
- Smelting houses
- Granite quarrying
- Hey Tor stone for London Bridge
- Two railways
- Sir Thomas Tyrwitt’s hopes
- China clay
- Peat and naptha
- A powder works
This blog will explore some of this topics in more detail, starting with mining as that is the industry with the largest overlap with previous Navsbooks posts.
The Dartmoor Mines
William Cross refers to thirteen mines in chapter 3, these are:
- Wheal Betsy
- Wheal Freindship
- Bachelor’s Hall
- Huntingdon
- Vitifer
- Eylesbarrow
- Whiteworks
- Gobbet
- Ringleshutts
- Knock Mine
- Rattle Brook
- Hexworthy
- Golden Dagger
The next post will start extracting information from.other authors to build up a picture of the extent of mining on the moor.
A Hundred Years on Dartmoor is now available on kindle.
William Crossing’s classic book on 19th Century Dartmoor is now available on Kindle.
An author's work in progress 