A Tinners Hut

I love the remains of the Tin industry that exist on Dartmoor and today I had time to visit the remains of this Tinners Hut

Dartmoor's valleys used to contain vast amounts of Tin ore which was washed there when Dartmoor, was vastly more mountainous than it is now.

Since the Bronze age man has exploited these deposits. In the Medieval period exploitation of these deposits exploded and Tinner's ventured into the remotest areas of the moor to "stream" the deposits and gain the valuable ore for smelting at various Blowing Houses around the moor.

Due to the distance of some of these workings from the Tinner's own homes, temporary accommodation was built from the local Granite stone to allow the Tinner's to live where they worked for short periods.

These Tinner's huts are scattered all over the moor in valley bottoms and usually differ from the Tinners Mills in that they often contained remains of wheel pits and mortar stones, where as ,these huts were living quarters.

This hut complete, with fire place,(Back Right corner of house) and a doorway in the front, lays above Headland Warren Farm and hidden up a gully just 10 feet from the road and hard to spot unless you search for it. This area was not only used as a rabbit warren but was also extensive tin streaming s0 it is very hard to date but it could quite possibly date from the medieval period. It may be better to view in Large