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Summary

Bachelors Hall, now a Youth Hostel is a long, sub-divided and partially cement rendered stone building with a slate roof and refashioned windows. It is built into the slope along the contour. There is no evidence of industrial use and no traces of a weir-pool or wheel leat are visible. The building is generally accepted as the site of the corn mill and bakery, later converted to a Naphtha Works; the ruin downstream (SX 67 SW 269) is thought to be a smelting works.

Location

Protected Status

• SHINE: Earthwork and walling remains of the late 18th century Bachelor's Hall Tin Mine, Princetown, including remains of a stamping mill and smelting house, leats, stamping floor and a dam

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX67SW83
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 909817
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX67SW/33/1

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• BAKERY (Post Medieval to Early 20th Century - 1540 AD (Between) to 1901 AD (Between))
• CORN MILL (Post Medieval to Early 20th Century - 1540 AD (Between) to 1901 AD (Between))
• NAPHTHA WORKS (XIX - 1844 AD (Between) to 1846 AD (Between))
• YOUTH HOSTEL (Late 20th Century to Unknown - 1989 AD (Pre))

Full description

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV219283.

Des=gray, t. /map of ground enclosed in the forest of dartmoor c.1800.

Shillibeer, W., 1805-1818, Map of Freehold and Enclosures on Dartmoor, 1805-18 (Cartographic). SDV218725.

Gill, C. (ed.), 1970, Dartmoor: a New Study, 251 (Monograph). SDV161800.

Robins, J., 1983, Follow the Leat, 52, 59 (Monograph). SDV352718.

Hemery, E., 1983, High Dartmoor, 382 (Monograph). SDV249702.

Royal Commission for the Historical Monuments of England, 1987-1993, Duchy Farms Project Survey Visit (Report - Survey). SDV350839.

Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt built a house at Bachelors Hall, and others in the neighbourhood, between 1785 and 1793 (Gill, 1970).
The land lease for the construction of a bakery was granted by the Duchy on the 20th June 1798, its site being specified as "a certain building known as Bachelors Hall on the border of a leat lately made for supplying Plymouth Dock with water". A corn mill and bakery were built at Bachelors Hall following the establishment of the prison in 1809. A weir-pool on Bachelors Hall Brook and a leat channel on the right bank are traceable south of the house, but later structural alterations have entirely obliterated all exterior vestiges of milling such as a wheel-pit or axle aperture in the house wall. It is probable that the now level bed of the stream which gushed through the farm court wall marks the site of the filled-in wheel pit (at the south end of the building) (Hemery, 1983, 374/382 and Robins, 1983, 52/59).
George Nicholson owned the "Dwelling House, outhouses, gardens" at Bachelors Hall and the lessee William Mitchell held 123 acres, 2r 26p titheable at £1.11s.1d. (Lydford Tithe Map/Apportionment).
In 1844 'The British Patent Naphtha Company' was established and the mill was converted into a Peat Works for the production of naphtha and tar oil also the manufacture of candles and moth-balls. The Works were transferred to Princetown Prison after two years (Hemery, 1983, 374/382).
Two mill cottages were recorded at Bachelors Halls in 1841 and six in 1851. George Caunter farmed 97 acres in 1871 and Oliver Caunter 109 acres in 1881. The last farmer left in 1944 (Census returns, 1841-1881, PRO).
The signs, in their turn, of milling, baking and farming are pre-dated downstream by those of tin mining (Hemery, 1983), see SX 67 SW 269.
(Visited 01/05/1989) Bachelors Hall, now a Youth Hostel, is at SX 60117358. It is a long, sub-divided and partially cement rendered stone building with a slate roof and refashioned windows. It is built into the slope along the contour. There is no evidence of industrial use and no traces of a weir-pool or wheel leat are visible. To the south of the building is a wide, dry channel and adjacent to the wall a narrow eroded channel; both carried water from the hillside down to the stream. Hemery's reference (1983) to a weir-pool and leat might apply to the dam and a by-pass channel downstream (see SX 67 SW 269).
The building is generally accepted as the site of the corn mill and bakery, later converted to a Naphtha Works; the ruin downstream (SX 67 SW 269) is thought to be a smelting works. Both documentary and map sources indicate the existence of other buildings at Bachelors Hall (1805-1817 map, 1800 map; Gray).
Trywhitt built a late 18th century house here and a few years later he was granted a lease to build a corn mill; this suggests two separate buildings. The tithe map and census returns both imply the existence of a farm at Bachelors Hall which if proved would have co-existed with mill cottages for the short duration of the Naphtha Works.
The Ordnance Survey 2 inch drawing depicts five buildings near the stream as does an early 19th century Duchy map although the latter are somewhat stylised and annotated " Bachelors Hall Tin Mine".
A second 19th century Duchy map shows Bachelors Hall as an L-shape building slightly larger than it is today. A building depicted downstream is allegedly the smelting works, and two structures higher up the hillside to the west annotated 'Brewery' (SX 60017365). The 1839 tithe map depicts a building here of L-shape with other buildings and the farm outbuildings more or less as they are today.
Further research is necessary before the precise siting of each element can be firmly established.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8628 - Tor Royal Farm Duchy Farms Survey
• EDV8659 - Bachelor's Hall, Duchy Farms Survey
• EDV8409 - Dartmoor Royal Forest Project

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