History
Streaming and open-cast mining for tin have taken place in this part of Dartmoor for many centuries. It is believed that the industry on the moor was at its peak as early as the 12th century. For instance, in 1168, men from the nearby village of Sheepstor are known to have been "tinners". Around 550 years later a document of 1715 stated of Sheepstor Parish that "all the parishioners are tinners", but by this time working for tin on the moor was already in decline, probably because of the exhaustion of the easily-accessible deposits.
Revival came in the late 1780s, fired by the needs and innovations of the industrial revolution. It is possible that some underground working took place on the site of the mine as early as 1790, but the first documentary evidence is an offer for sale of shares in a mine called "Ailsborough" in 1804, and records of tin dues paid from 1806 to 1810.
By 1814 demand had caused the price of tin to rise to about £150 per ton and in that year a mining sett called "Ellisborough Tin Set" was granted. Extraction started at the mine in February 1815 and by 1820, despite several business difficulties, it was sending quantities of black tin to Cornwall for smelting. In 1822 the mine opened its own smelting house on the site—the only one in operation on the moor. There is evidence that black tin was bought from nearby mines for smelting here.
The next ten years or so were the mine's most productive period, despite there being a fall in the price of tin from 1826. In addition to tin, some "Forest Clay" (kaolin) was sold. In 1831 the mine employed over sixty men, but at the end of that year the smelter ceased operation and there is then a four-year gap in the records.
Read more about this topic: Eylesbarrow Mine
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