Blowing house

  A blowing house was a building used for smelting tin, using bellows. In Cornwall and on Dartmoor in Devon, the furnace was usually made of granite blocks, sealed with clay. The concentrated tin ore (cassiterite) was mixed with charcoal and the bellows were usually operated by a water wheel.^[1]

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The blowing house method of smelting tin was probably introduced early in the 13th century.^[1] The oldest known blowing house on Dartmoor, known as "Kings Oven", stood above the Warren House Inn and is known from the 1240 Perambulation of Dartmoor.^[1] From the beginning of the 18th century, this method was gradually superseded by reverberatory furnace smelting, which used higher temperatures and powdered anthracite as fuel.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Gill, Crispin (editor) (1970). Dartmoor, A New Study. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 104. ISBN 0 7153 5041 2. 

• Bryan Earl Cornish mining: the techniques of metal mining in the West of England, past and present; 2nd edition; Cornish Hillside Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-9519419-3-3.pp.97, 97.1 with illustration.