Mould stone at Postbridge

This photograph is dated 26 January 1889. It shows evidence of the tin mining industry which operated on Dartmoor until around 1939. Blowing houses (sometimes called blowing mills) contained small blast furnaces into which a forced draught of air was blown using waterwheel-powered bellows. Cassiterite (tin oxide) ore was smelted in the blast furnace and cast into ingots using a mould stone. Burnard recorded the location of this photograph as being at 'Barracks' Postbridge. Crossing says that there was an old track running from Postbridge clapper bridge down the right bank of the River Dart that passed close to a ruined tinners' building known as The Barracks.