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Summary

Remains of a possible post medieval tinner's store or cache situated within an area of streamworks on the Deep Swincombe. The structure is rectangular on plan measuring 5.5 metres by 3.1 metres internally with a possible entrance in the northwest corner. The walls survive to a height of one metre with mounds of streaming waste built against the outside walls. There is an unusual chamber in the south wall. There is no direct evidence that this is a blowing house or stamping mill, but a mouldstone has been found near the leat. The waste built up around the building may have been done so to conceal it, and so may have also been used as a store.

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1002600: Blowing house on Down Ridge
• SHINE: Central western section of the Bronze Age Venford Reave at Swincombe, with a number of attached hut circle settlements and enclosures, as well as an extensive Bronze Age field system, a cairn and a post-Medieval blowing house on Down Ridge

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX67SW47
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 443370
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX67SW/30
• Old SAM County Ref: 792
• Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division: SX67SW47

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• (Former Type) BLOWING HOUSE? (Built, Post Medieval to Early 20th Century - 1540 AD (Between) to 1901 AD (Between))
• STOREHOUSE (Built, Post Medieval to Early 20th Century - 1540 AD (Between) to 1901 AD (Between))
• TINNERS HUT (Built, Post Medieval to Early 20th Century - 1540 AD (Between) to 1901 AD (Between))

Full description

6/11/1984, Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV235843.

Site surveyed at 1:100 by greeves + robinson (6/11/1984). Plans in possession of t. Greeves.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV235851.

Des=mining journal/(22/8/1891)947.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV235852.

Des=burnard, r. /ms notes in 6" os map of dartmoor/vol ii(in possession of lady sayer).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV235856.

Mus=plym. Acc. No.877.

Burnard, R., 1888 - 1889, On the Track of the 'Old Men', Dartmoor, 111-112 (Article in Serial). SDV154694.

Baring Gould, S., 1900, A Book of Dartmoor, 114-120 (Monograph). SDV277387.

Ordnance Survey, 1904 - 1906, Second Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch Map, 107se (Cartographic). SDV325644.

'Blowing House (remains of)' marked on 1906 historic map.

Burnard, R., 1907, The Ancient Population of the Forest of Dartmoor, 199 (Article in Serial). SDV235854.

Burnard, r. /tda/39(1907)199/the ancient population of the forest of dartmoor.

Burnard, R., 1911, Address of the President, 51 (Article in Serial). SDV231227.

Crossing, W., 1912 (1965), Crossing's Guide to Dartmoor, 464 (Monograph). SDV320981.

Worth, R. H., 1940, Notes on some Dartmoor Blowing Houses, 205-206 (Article in Serial). SDV218987.

Remains of building, Swincombe, Down Ridge. The walls of the building still stand. At one end of the building there is a covered chamber, probably a 'cache' possibly a late addition or alteration. Outside the building, to the south lies an earthfast boulder, in which a shallow trough has been worked. The identification of this trough as a tin mould is open to great doubt. It lies outside the house, on the opposite side of the door. The building lacks the first essential of a blowing house, and that is water-power. There is no trace of either a leat or a wheel-pit. There is no evidence of a smelting place. Baring Gould mentions and describes a 'furnace base', but this I have never seen nor is it mentioned by Burnard.
A tinner's hut or store it may well have been, but certainly not a blowing house. Pottery found in house could be Celtic or Saxon, or also 15th century. The building is constructed in a heap of tinners waste. The inside lined with rubble walling, the least width of the bank forming the walls, including the walling, is 1.3m, at places considerably more.

Worth, R. H., 1940, The Dartmoor Blowing House, 216 (Article in Serial). SDV154693.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1950/1977, SX67SW47 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV235847.

(27/04/1950) Worth's description (1940) and dimensions accurate. No trace of either a leat or wheel-pit could be found. Probably not a blowing house.
(10/08/1977) The internal dimensions of this building are 6.7m by 2.5m and the walls average 1.2m in height. The thickness of the walls is impossible to determine because an earth mound has been built up to and over the building. There is no trace of a leat and as stated by Worth, it is probably a hut or store of indeterminate date.
The earthfast boulder with a trough mentioned by Worth is still embedded in the ground nearby.
Surveyed at 1:10 000 PFD.

Ancient Monuments, 1970/1978, Schedule notes (Schedule Document). SDV235837.

(15/04/1970) Drystone wall structure. Was standing up to 1.2m. Remains of partition wall inside structure. Entrance to north-east. Leat against south-west side of structure. Rectangular mould outside s corner. Scheduled as a blowing house.
(February 1978) SX64247190. Blowing house at Deep Swincombe, scheduled.

Greeves, T. A. P., 1981, List of Doubtful Devon Tin Mills c1450-c1750, No 51 (Un-published). SDV336693.

Unusual building with chamber in one wall and a trough which has been claimed as a mouldstone. Status of site suspect. A large body sherd from the site may well be from a chafing dish. Excavated in late XIX.

Greeves, T. A. P., 1981, Medieval Industry, 88, 93 (Article in Serial). SDV275197.

SX642719. The structure originally thought to be of early medieval date, is more likely to be late 15th or 16th century. A large body sherd from the site may be from a chafing dish. (see illustration card).

Robinson, R., 1983, List of Field Monument Warden Visits 1983 (Un-published). SDV345762.

Visited 19/01/1983.

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

Not visible on raf or NMR photos.

Greeves, T. A. P., 1990, An Assessment of Dartmoor Tinworking, 35 (Report - Assessment). SDV343684.

Royal Commission for the Historical Monuments of England, 1993-1998, Dartmoor Royal Forest Project, S. Probert (Report - Survey). SDV346608.

(13/06/1995) SX 64257190. The remains of what was probably a blowing house lie on the left bank of Deep Swincombe near the S boundary of Sherberton Farm. The wedge-shaped building lies in a trough between tinner's spoil heaps and measures 5.5m N to S by 3.1m internally. the walls consist of coursed boulder revetments up to 1.4m high. There are traces of a central sub division and a possible entrance in the NW corner. A large rectangular hollow 1.4m N to S by 0.7m in the SW corner may mark the site of an internal wheelpit with the water exiting via the break in the NW corner of the building. There is no obvious leat to confirm the function of this building but a mouldstone lies immediately to the S. This mouldstone is a large granite block with a rectangular trough 0.7m by 0.35m and 0.1m deep in its upper surface.

Cranstone, D. + Hedley, I., 1995, Monuments Protection Programme: The Tin Industry Step 3 Site Assessments, Devon 38 (Report - non-specific). SDV357946.

Possible tinner's store or cache situated within an area of streamworks.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds

• FDV7978 - MOULDSTONE (Post Medieval to Early 20th Century - 1540 AD to 1901 AD)

Associated Events

• EDV8146 - Royal Commission Survey at Down Ridge and Swincombe
• EDV3459 - Excavation at blowing house, Swincombe, Down Ridge
• EDV8409 - Dartmoor Royal Forest Project

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