MDE11670 - 19th Century adit southwest of Watersmeet House (Monument)

Adit (Iron Trials). SS 743 486. Claughton records workings for iron trials on 1870 in Barton Wood adjacent to Watersmeet House. [1] A short, abandoned adit beside the East Lyn opposite Watersmeet House records an unsuccessful search for metals on the Watersmeet Estate. Probably the search was for iron, the presence of which is hinted at in the red-stained rocks along the valley side. [2] SS 74413 48635. The adit is cut into a rock face at the base of steep slopes on the S side of the East Lyn River. It is 3.2 metres high and 2.2 metres wide at the entrance and penetrates for a depth of 6.5 metres. There is a watercolour print in the Exmoor Museum, Lynton illustrating an ironstone mine near Watersmeet being worked in 1875. It shows a miner wheeling ore ? in a barrow with an adit entrance, presumably this one, in the background [3]. Surveyed at 1:2500. [4] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [5]