Hemsworthy Mine

Overview

A tin mine beside the road at Hemsworthy Gate on south-east Dartmoor, and the centre of Haytor Consols, the company that in 1851 put five small ventures under one management. Its engine shaft was sunk on the North Lode in 1853 with a steam engine to drain it, and a two-foot gauge tramway carried the ore more than a mile down the Bagtor Brook valley to dressing floors at Crownley Parks. Three lodes produced sixteen tons of black tin in three years, and by about 1856 it was over. The engine shaft is now the surface of a car park.

History

The ground was first worked open by the streamers — the old men — on small quartz and tourmaline strings, and was developed in the 1840s by a succession of short-lived companies trading as Hemsworthy, Somerset, Ilsington and Teignmouth Mines, whose work amounted to little more than prospecting with shafts and levels no deeper than ten fathoms. The mine's best years began with the creation of Haytor Consols in 1851, which brought Hemsworthy together with Bagtor and Crownley Parks, and the Wheal Somerset, Ilsington and Teignmouth setts, under a single management. The Devonport Journal reported on 9 December 1852 that a large number of men were employed at Hemsworthy near the Haytor granite quarries, that the tin lodes were rich, and that a railway cutting was being made to carry the ore to be crushed about a mile below the mine; that tramway, believed to have been of two-foot gauge, ran down the valley of the Bagtor Brook to dressing floors at Crownley Parks. By May 1853 an engine shaft had been sunk on the Hemsworthy North Lode and a steam engine set to work. The manager's report of January 1854 records the South Lode cut in the adit at about fifteen fathoms and driven on for some forty-five fathoms, with about two hundred fathoms of backs stoped in the previous four months; the lode was then yielding three tons of tin a month and was expected to give five. Stoping was paid at ten shillings a fathom and the lodes worked were about two and a half feet wide. Sales of black tin between 1853 and 1855 came to sixteen tons ten hundredweight two quarters, realising £965 9s 6d. Haytor Consols is recorded in business from 1851 until about 1856.

Geology

The mine worked three parallel lodes — North, Middle and South — in the granite and its aureole on the eastern edge of Dartmoor. The earliest working here was open, on small quartz and tourmaline strings at the surface. The lodes worked underground were about two and a half feet wide.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (well documented example)

Workings

The engine shaft was sunk on the North Lode to 168 feet, eighteen fathoms below the adit level, which had been driven ninety fathoms west and a hundred and thirty fathoms east of it; a forty horsepower steam engine stood beside the shaft with a chimney, and drained the workings below adit level. A crosscut adit ran from the old open workings through to the engine shaft and on southwards under the road to cut the Middle and South Lodes, each with short drives east and west. Lines of shafts follow the three lodes within fifty to seventy-five metres of the road, some of them probably air shafts or collapses; the western shaft on the North Lode stands close to Hemsworthy Gate, and the shafts on the South Lode run west to east for about 125 metres. Ore went out on a two-foot gauge tramway along the Bagtor Brook valley to dressing floors at Crownley Parks, where a thirty-foot waterwheel drove thirty-two heads of stamps.

Closure

Haytor Consols is recorded as in business from 1851 to 1856. Bagtor, one of the mines it amalgamated, has a recorded output of fifteen tons of black tin between 1863 and 1865, after the company's time.

What remains

The old open workings and the lines of shafts survive in the moorland either side of the road between Hemsworthy Gate and Saddle Tor, most of them within a short walk of it. The engine shaft's site is now used as a car park, and a cut platform and a square of foundations beside it are taken to be where the steam engine and its chimney stood.

The open workings, shafts on all three lodes, the site of the engine shaft with the platform and foundations of its engine and chimney, the line of the crosscut adit and its tailrace, a probable trial pit, and the course of the tramway across Bagtor Down.

Redevelopment

None, beyond the car park that now occupies the engine shaft's surface; the ground is open moorland in the Dartmoor National Park.

Nearby mines

• Bagtor Mine — 2.7 km E
• Haytor Granite Quarry — 3.3 km E
• Yarner Copper Mine — 4.7 km NE
• Silverbrook Mine — 4.9 km E
• Kelly Mine — 7.3 km NE

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Haytor Consols was created in 1851 and amalgamated Hemsworthy with Bagtor and Crownley Parks, and the Wheal Somerset, Ilsington and Teignmouth mines, between 1851 and 1856. ^1,2
• The mine worked the North, Middle and South Lodes from the engine shaft and produced sixteen tons of black tin between 1853 and 1855. ^1,2
• Sales of black tin between 1853 and 1855 came to sixteen tons ten hundredweight two quarters, realising £965 9s 6d. ¹
• The engine shaft was sunk on the North Lode to 168 feet, eighteen fathoms below an adit level driven ninety fathoms west and a hundred and thirty fathoms east of it, and a steam engine was set to work by May 1853. ¹
• A tramway, believed to have been of two-foot gauge, carried ore about a mile down the Bagtor Brook valley to dressing floors at Crownley Parks. ¹
• The manager reported in January 1854 that the South Lode was yielding three tons of tin a month, that stoping was paid at ten shillings a fathom and that the lodes worked were about two and a half feet wide. ¹
• The ground was first worked open by streamers on small quartz and tourmaline strings, and in the 1840s by short-lived companies whose shafts and levels went no deeper than ten fathoms. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Hemsworthy Mine — Dartmoor Explorations
2. (secondary) Hemsworthy Mine, Devon — Mining in Devon Database (Devon in Focus)

Record created: 24 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026