The cache is somewhat difficult to get to but is placed at an item of archaelogical interest that gets little attention due to its location.
Reaching the cache:
I have waymarked a route from Haytor lower car park which is about a mile in each direction - leave the car park and walk up the stream/bog until you can see a place to cross, then follow the paths along the contour and gradually downhill around the hill to the Trail Head waymarker which is in the middle of the Bag Tor workings. The Trail Head starts at the top of a long inclined plane. Around 8 meters uphill from this you can see a masonry wall which houses a small arch - this was possibly part of the winding engine building which pulled carts up and down the plane. Walk down the plane to the cache.
There is a track which extends from the cache downwards to a public road to the Southeast by Bag Tor Mill and Streetview shows there is space to park there. However the OS map does not show this as a public right of way so I cannot recommend it.
The CO once spent a day here in 1989 when an apprentice for Dartmoor National Park strimming and clearing back. It's taken me 28 years to return!
History:
Bag Tor Mine, together with Wheal Somerset, Ilsington, Teignmouth and Hemsworthy Mines, was amalgamated into Crownley Parks mines which together worked the Haytor Consoles.
These ruins are part of the Bag Tor Mine complex which extends for approx half a mile upwards to the northwest where scars in the landscape show surface workings. These formed part of three east-west lodes which were also reached from Quickbeam Shaft, Prosper Shaft and Western Shaft and associated adits, reaching a depth of 20 fathoms. (120 feet)
Close by to the cache and fenced off is a very large wheelpit which housed an unusually large water wheel of 60ft diameter which was possibly the largest water wheel ever used on Dartmoor. (The much more sucessful Eylesbarrow Mine only had a 50' wheel). After the mine closed, this wheel was sold to another moor mine.
Some of the Haytor Consoles mines used steam engines fired by peat, and the ruins of a winding house are mentioned which may been installed for the inclined plane used to approach the site.
The surface workings extend half a mile upwards from here and cut across bronze-age reaves (field systems)
Despite the extensive surface works and remains, this was not a rich mine. The only recorded output was 15 tons of black tin (casserite) between 1863 and 1865.
Reference page
This cache is placed in accordance to the Dartmoor National Park Geocaching Guidelines.