Dartmoor quiz
Which spot on Dartmoor has also been known as "the Devil's Dome"?
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Main image: Photo: Guy Wareham, Wikimedia Commons
A blowing house was a small smelting operation where tin ore extracted from Dartmoor's mines was heated and refined. This scheduled monument on Down Ridge represents the industrial landscape that shaped the moor from medieval times onwards. The site preserves the physical traces of this process: the stone foundations and earthworks where tin was worked, away from the mines themselves but within the working landscape.
Today there is little above ground to see, but the earthworks and rubble tell the story of local tin working. The site sits in the wider context of Dartmoor's tin mining heritage, which once sustained communities across the high moor. These humble industrial monuments are scattered across the landscape, markers of centuries of hard labour and commerce.
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