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Summary

Tin streamworks in the Redwater Valley. The evidence covers the entire valley floor from the head of the stream down through the Golden Dagger area into Soussons plantation and beyond to the south. Two additional spurs of shallow workings branch off the main working, one on the western side of the valley and the other on the east which extends up the slopes of Challacombe to merge with the openwork known as Chaw Gully.

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1021340: Tinworks, field systems, settlements, warren, cairns and a stone alignment at Headland Warren

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX68SE327
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 1339558
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX68SE/66/1
• Old SAM Ref Revised: 34499

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• OPEN CUT (Early Medieval to XXI - 1066 AD to 2009 AD)
• STREAMWORK (Constructed, XV to Post Medieval - 1450 AD (Between) to 1750 AD (Between))

Full description

Royal Air Force, 1947, RAF/CPE/UK/2149, 4314 (Aerial Photograph). SDV282746.

National Monuments Record, 1977, SX6880, 3, 4 (Aerial Photograph). SDV281707.

National Monuments Record, 1979, SF1508, 41 (Aerial Photograph). SDV346563.

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1985, Aerial Photograph Project (Dartmoor) - Dartmoor Pre-NMP (Cartographic). SDV319854.

SX 6820 8095 Birch Tor and Vitifer Mine. A massive network of openworks is visible in the valley between Birch Tor and Water Hill. These openworks are concentrated between SX 68208110 and SX 68358058 where linear spoilheaps are visible. There is one large 'arm' of linear gullies and trial pits extending east towards Headland Warren Farm, finally dying out in the area around SX 698815. To the north, there is a complex area of criss-cross gullies as far as SX 684816. On the west, the openwork gullies fall down towards another openwork and streamwork on the Walla Brook.

Griffith, F. M., 1985, DAP/EM, 12 (Aerial Photograph). SDV274678.

Greeves, T. A. P., 1990, An Assessment of Dartmoor Tinworking, 22 (Report - Assessment). SDV343684.

Greeves, T. A. P., 1991, Tinworking at Heathercombe, Manaton (Un-published). SDV280255.

Lodeworkings at Birch Tor and Vitifer likely to have Medieval origins 1450-1600.

Newman, P., 1996, Recording the Tinworks of Dartmoor Forest (Article in Serial). SDV337905.

Recording the tinworks of Dartmoor Forest in Newman, P. (ed)' The Archaeology of Mining & Metallurgy in South West Britain (1996) 84-90 (Mining History: Bulletins PDMHS, Vol 13 no 2).

Whitbourne, A., 2001, Visit to Vitifer and Birch Tor Mines, 3-4 (Article in Serial). SDV305962.

Extensive openworks on lance's lodes. In Chaw Gully openworks reach a depth of c.20m.

Newman, P., 2002, Headland Warren and the Birch Tor and Vitifer Mines (Report - Survey). SDV363213.

(Visited 10/07/2001) Tin streamworks in the Redwater Valley. The evidence covers the entire valley floor from the head of the stream down through the Golden Dagger area into Soussons plantation and beyond to the south. Two additional spurs of shallow workings branch off the main working, one on the western side of the valley and the other on the east which extends up the slopes of Challacombe to merge with the openwork known as Chaw Gully. The valley floor workings have been extensively disturbed by 19th-century mining activity (SX 68 SE 301) with tramways, leats, buildings, pits and spoil dumps overlaying the evidence in places. The western spur is the better preserved part of these workings, demonstrating clearly the parallel spoil dumps characteristic of streamwork remains. Also a moderately deep openwork runs down the length of the streamwork where a lode was once worked which sat beneath the streamwork.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV7139 - Headland Warren and the Birch Tor and Vitifer Mines Survey (Ref: A1/20/2001, A1/34/2002)

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