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Summary

A complex consisting of wheelpit, leat embankment, leat, settling pits, walled 'tunnel' and possible shafts, extending down to Newleycombe Lake. A 1970s car park occupies the area of the dressing floor. Probable date of mine is early 19th century. Surveyed in 2012.

Location

Protected Status

• SHINE: Structural and earthwork remains of an 18th to early 19th century mining complex south of Norsworthy Bridge, including wheelpit, leat, settling pits and possible shafts known as Bal Mine

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX56NE206
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 619148
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX56NE/210

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• TIN MINE (XVIII to XIX - 1751 AD (Between) to 1815 AD (Between))

Full description

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV231055.

Haynes, r. G. /ruined sites on dartmoor/(nd) 95,97. Plan/ms in smr. Vis=-/-/1966 (haynes) the area south of newleycombe bridge has been thoroughly worked by tinners. One, possibly two wheelpits visible (site partly destroyed by a car park in 1971).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV231056.

Des=greeves, t. /dcra swwa burrator survey/(1979)no.30/plans(in smr). Vis=10/5/1977 (greeves) a complex consisting of wheelpit, leat embankment, leat, settling pits, walled 'tunnel' and possible shafts, extending down to newleycombe lake. A car park occupies the area of the dressing floor. Probable date of mine is early 19th century. Scrub to be cleared 1979 (greeves).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV231058.

Des=pwdro/ww17/water base map(1873).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV231059.

Des=greeves, t. /notes for devon studies week(1979)/in smr.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV231060.

Nmr=sx56ne206.

South West Heritage Trust, 1838-1848, Digitised Tithe Maps and Transcribed Apportionments, Plot 1072 (Cartographic). SDV359954.

Des=ta 1072.

Hemery, E., 1983, High Dartmoor, 146 (Monograph). SDV249702.

The ruins of the Bal Mine smelting house stand beside the junction of Middlemarch Lane with the Burrator Reservoir perimeter road.
The smelting-house measures 45 feet 6 inches by 45 feet 6 inches internally, only the rear wall still standing. A flue, 2 feet 6 inches square internally, open above the furnace, and is subterranean for part of its length behind the house. A wheelpit, fed by water taken by a leat from the left bank of Newleycombe Lake, is 22 feet long by 5 feet 9 inches wide. The partly removed tail-race returned water to the stream a little above the present bridge.

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

Not visible 1946 RAF verticals.

Dartmoor Tinworking Research Group, 2013, Survey of Bal Mine, Walkhampton (Plan - measured). SDV363062.

Survey undertaken in 2012 at Bal Mine by members of the Dartmoor Tinworking Research Group.

Historic England, 2021-2022, NRHE to HER website, Accessed 27/08/2021 (Website). SDV364039.

(10/04/2008) This is a poorly documented mine usually known as Bal Mine, though that may not be its original name. The layout of the dressing floor suggests origins somewhere in the first half of the 19th century, though other remains at the site are certainly earlier. The evidence is located to the south-west of Nosworthy Bridge on an area of level ground, some of which has been adapted for use as a car park.
Surface evidence of underground activity at this site is scarce but it is likely that later miners concentrated on re-working a lode which had previously been exploited as a shallow openwork. The openwork follows a SW-NE strike and is approximately 120m long by up to 4m deep and 18m wide. There is also a number of pit works running the length of the openwork and beyond. It is difficult to assign a date to these pits but some may be surface evidence of shafts associated with the later episode, though most are likely to be much earlier. Beyond the openwork to the north-east is a more likely looking shaft at SX 5705 6941, adjacent to the river. This comprises a large conical pit with a moderate collar of spoil around its circumference. The site of a probable blocked adit is located on the west side of the road, where the top end of a shallow mire-filled gully indicates the position of the portal, from which water now flows.
The wheelpit and dressing floor are sited beside the south-western end of the openwork at SX 5690 6931. The wheelpit is built from granite and its outline is intact on all four sides. The internal dimensions are 6.8m by 1.7m and at the launder end, where the wall is revetted into a bank, the structure is 2.6m deep. The other three sides are shallower which suggests the upper section of the walls has been demolished and once stood proud of the ground. The interior is clear though containing reeds and ferns. The probable position of the stamping mill and part of the dressing floor is on the south side where a level area 15m by 15m is defined on the north east and south east sides by a stone revetment. This area is now boggy and its details are obscured by scrub. Approximately 2m from the wheelpit the revetment is breached and an earthwork hollow cuts into the ground behind the floor. It is uncertain if this is an original feature. A small rectangular aperture, the entrance to a short tunnel, was recorded in the south east corner of the revetment in the 1980¿s but this is currently covered by brambles.
Behind the back end of the wheelpit, the leat terminates on a large raised embankment standing to up to 1.6m high. This is constructed from earth but has traces of masonry cladding near the terminal. The leat is a clear, dry, earthwork channel of approximately 1m wide and up to 0.3m deep which can be traced for approximately 115m back to its source on the Newleycombe Lake at SX 5698 6944.
The tailrace survives in part to the north-west of the wheelpit where a curving channel of over 1m wide and up to 1.5m deep conveyed water away from the wheel. The channel terminates where it reaches the modern tarmac road, but would have originally continued back to Newleycombe Lake
Any features originally located on the north-west side of the wheelpit have been leveled when the car park was created, however, beyond this area, about 40m north-west of the wheelpit, there is the very clear evidence of a tailings pit. This comprises a sunken pit of up to 0.6m deep with a gently sloping interior and a stone lining surviving in places along its edge. The overall length is 28m, but there is a central dividing bank of 2.6m wide, creating one pit of 12m and one of 14m. The division does not take up the full width and there is an opening of 2.3m between the two chambers. The pits are not rectangles, although the eastern sides of both chambers are straight, the west side of the uppers section curves to meet the opposite side to create a narrow opening where the inlet allowed the water and dressing waste to enter. The maximum width is 7m. After settling, the water would have been released through an opening in the north-west end into Newleycombe Lake, a small stream which runs past the pit only 3m from the lower end.
South-west of the wheelpit, on the opposite side of the modern road near the adit is a possible in-situ mellior stone, comprising a flat, granite stone set into the ground with a vertical hole of approximately 60mm diameter on the upper face. There is no real evidence of a whim plat surrounding the stone, nor is there a shaft nearby. However, it is possible that both once existed nearby but were effaced by the alterations to this locality when the reservoir perimeter road and car park were constructed. The interpretation of the site as a smelting house by Hemery (1983) is incorrect (citing Newman P 10-APR-2008 EH Archaeological Field Investigation).

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8113 - Survey of Bal Mine
• EDV8862 - Survey of archaeological sites on SWLT land in the Burrator catchment
• EDV8863 - Survey of archaeological sites on SWLT land in the Burrator catchment

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