Birch Tor and Vitifer Mine

• Parish: North Bovey
• Grid reference: SX 68271 80992 (the mine office); the workings spread from about SX 677 807 to SX 685 816
• Mineral: black tin (cassiterite)
• Worked: first recorded 1750; amalgamated 1845; closed 1882; revived 1887 to 1913
• Access: the path between Bennett's Cross and Birch Tor crosses the workings

Vitifer and Birch Tor were two mines on opposite sides of the Redwater Brook valley, Vitifer to the west and Birch Tor to the east, mostly worked together under one management. Vitifer is first recorded in 1750. The Dartmoor Mining and Smelting Company worked it in the 1780s, and by 1796 it had 13 shafts and 40 men. The two mines were joined in 1845, and sales peaked at about 150 tons of black tin in 1864. The mine closed in 1882, was revived from 1887, and ran to about 1913, with the dumps reworked into the 1920s.

Remains include shafts, adits, wheelpits, flat-rod channels, a tramway, a long miners' dry, the mine office, the Tinners Mill with its buddles, and the leat system. The adit of the Birch Tor Lode is open but not recommended without an experienced group, and the New Shaft is fenced off.

Crossing (Guide to Dartmoor, 1914, vol. 1, p. 366) places the workings on the North Bovey commons, between the Warren House Inn and Moretonhampstead where the West Webburn rises. The Golden Dagger Mine lies about 800 metres to the south.

Sources: Dartmoor Explorations, Birch Tor and Vitifer Mine; Wikipedia, Birch Tor and Vitifer mine; W. Crossing, Guide to Dartmoor (1914) vol. 1 p. 366; Dartmoor: A New Study (1977) p. 114.