Kelly Mine

• Near: Lustleigh, a few metres from the A382
• Ore: micaceous haematite, known as shiny ore
• Worked: intermittently from the 1790s; closed 1951
• Run by: Kelly Mine Preservation Society, since 1984
• Access: no underground access; open days, other visits by arrangement

Kelly Mine is on the eastern flank of Dartmoor, between Bovey Tracey and Moretonhampstead. Its ore was micaceous haematite, "shiny ore", used as a base for corrosion-resistant paint and as blotting sand, and in pottery glazes. Wikipedia dates working from the 1790s, while Dartmoor Explorations describes the Kelly Iron Mines Company working from 1879 to 1892, the Scottish Silvoid Company from 1900 and the Ferrubron Company until closure. Sources differ on the last operator's name.

It was one of about ten such mines in the triangle between Bovey Tracey, Moretonhampstead and Hennock; ore went by cart or lorry to Lustleigh station. A collapse in the Slade workings in 1951 closed all the mines of the Wray valley. Since 1984 the Kelly Mine Preservation Society has leased the site and restored the machinery to working order: waterwheels, a Blackstone engine, stamps, a jigging box, the drying shed and the miners' dry, with a small museum. There is no underground access.

Sources: Wikipedia, Kelly Mine, Devon; Dartmoor Explorations, Kelly Mine; Kelly Mine Preservation Society; Lustleigh Society, Mining and quarrying.