ON THE TRACK OF THE " OLD MEN." 
241 
period. One of these trees has a trunk circumference of five 
feet six inches. In Wistman's Wood there is a large triangular- 
shaped boulder with the following inscription : "By permission 
of H.E.H. the Prince of Wales, Wentworth Buller, on September 
16th, 1866, cut down a tree near this spot; it measured nine 
inches in diameter, and appeared to be about 168 years old." If 
this estimate be correct, and if the growth of this tree and that 
at Week Ford proceeded in anything like the same ratio, it would 
give an age to the latter of something like four centuries. The 
tree at Wistman's Wood had to contend with an elevation of 
about 450 feet more than that at Week Ford, and would 
therefore have a slower growth, so that although a mere com- 
parison of size may be made to roughly approximate the difference 
of ages in the two trees, too much reliance must not of course be 
placed on such an estimate. Living persons remember the Week 
Ford ruin, or "Beara House," as it is sometimes called, for fifty 
years and more, in precisely the same condition as it now is, and 
with no apparent appreciable growth of the trees. Taking into 
consideration the whole of these circumstances, it is tolerably 
safe to assume that we have to go back some three or four 
hundred years before we reach the period when this place was 
smelting stream tin. It is impossible to indicate, with any degree 
of certainty, the age of the remains at Gobbett or on the Yealm 
and Erme. The only thing similar about them is the stone 
moulds, but as a type of mould might have been in use for a 
lengthened period, they do not help us forward in the desired 
direction. Some may be comparatively modern, whilst others 
may be of respectable antiquity. 
The primitive blowing-house at Deep Swincombe, with its 
single and peculiarly shaped mould cut into the face of a huge 
boulder, -is probably the most ancient of all the rectangular 
smelting-places yet noticed on Dartmoor. The district in which it 
is situated, possessed at any rate sufficient importance to be 
mentioned in the earliest Forest records. 
Whilst active streaming and mining operations were going on 
in this district agriculture was not neglected, for we gather from 
the bailiff's account of the manor of Dartmoor, a.d. 1379, that 1 Jd. 
was paid for an acre of land in Hextworthy — near Deep Swin- 
combe — let to John Browning ; and also 3d. for two acres of land 
in Bysouthexworthie let to John Holrig. 
