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Summary

A small rectangular building with a dressing floor next to it. The slight remains of a wheelpit further north, and a stamps area beside it. This is almost certainly the lost site of Beardown Mine, known in 1797. A short distance upstream another small tinners' building was found.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• National Record of the Historic Environment: 1219085
• National Record of the Historic Environment: SX57NE61
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX57NE/114

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• ADIT (XVII to XVIII - 1700 AD (Between) to 1799 AD (Between))
• TIN MINE (XVII to XVIII - 1700 AD (Between) to 1799 AD (Between))
• WHEEL PIT (XVII to XVIII - 1700 AD (Between) to 1799 AD (Between))

Full description

NOTE AND SKETCH PLAN IN PARISH FILE, Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV261190.

(note and sketch plan in parish file).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV261192.

Des=greeves, t. /note and sketch plan(1987)/in parish file. Vis=31/10/1987 (greeves) a small rectangular building with a dressing floor next to it. The slight remains of a wheelpit further north, and a stamps area beside it. To the south, a possible blocked adit (? related to trial pits sx57ne/103). The course of a leat can be traced back from the wheelpit for some 1200m - the headweir was perhaps at circa sx59667747. This is almost certainly the lost site of beardown mine, known in 1797. A short distance upstream another small tinners' building was found.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV261193.

Des=greeves, t. /an assessment of dartmoor tin working/(1990)29/in smr.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV261194.

Des=greeves, t. /dartmoor magazine/49(winter 1997)6-8/tin stamping mills of dartmoor after ad 1750.

Agricultural Development Advisory Service, 1988, Beardown Farm, Princetown, Yelverton, Devon (Report - Assessment). SDV355062.

(17/08/1988) An area about 25m square, centred at SX59767626 appears to be the processing part of the 18th century Beardown Mine. It lies beside the Cowsic River , at the foot of a steep west slope and near the western end of a line of tin pits (SX57NE60). The area is covered by coarse grass, but the probable function of some features can be deduced although the structural remains are minimal.
At the north side, a shallow marshy depression, 8m long E-W and 2.5m wide, indicates the site of a wheelpit. its precise outline partly obscured by a spoil heap to the north. A leat for the wheel, starting from the Cowsic River, was about 1km long. The initial 200m cannot now be detected , but from SX59417779 it is visible as a silted channel 0.6m wide and 0.3m deep. It may have been laundered across the Beardown Brook streamworks where there is a break between SX59567737 and SX59577726. At the southern end the leat terminates on the hillside above the wheelpit.
Immediately S of the wheelpit a stamping area, 3.8m E-W by 1.4m N-S, is bounded on the N and E by a wall, 1m wide and 0.6m high. A possible S wall is visible as a disturbed line of rubble.
At the south edge of the complex a NW-SE building is on a platform, cut 0.7m into the hillside on the SE and similarly built up on the NW. Internally the structure measures 5.2m by 3.1m. Its NW and SW walls, 0.8m thick and 0.4m high, are of coursed unmortared stone; the NE and SE sides are revetments 0.7m high. There is a possible entrance, 1.2m wide, near the N end of the NW side.
A dressing floor, 155m N-S and 8.7m E-W, is NW of the above building and abuts the S wall of the stamping area. It is bounded on the E and SE by Coursed boulder revetments 0.6m high.
Greeves claims a possible blocked adit S of the rectangular building. A massive boulder, 1.8m by 1.2m on its external face, is in the area with several minor voids around its edge but no obvious adit can be seen.
The western side of the complex has been cut by a now abandoned stretch of the Devonport Leat which is stone-lined and has probably utilised much material from the stone structures.
Surveyed at 1:5000.

English Heritage, 2005, Industrial Survey Information (Report - Survey). SDV346396.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8643 - Beardown Farm, Duchy Farms Survey
• EDV8409 - Dartmoor Royal Forest Project

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