Mould stone in blowing house on banks of river Walkham

This photograph is dated 15 May 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 described the location of the photograph as "in ruin of a Blowing House situated on the left bank of the Walkham about 1000 yards above the other Blowing House". This the mould stone at the Upper Blowing House.