So what is it all about then?

Spirit Of Dartmoor Tin is a book of magic, passion and beauty captured essentially through stunning visual images. At its heart are two journeys. The first is of tin ore (cassiterite) nurtured in cooling veins of Dartmoor granite some 275 million years ago, and then transformed by crushing and smelting into peerless silvery metal.

The second comprises fifteen years of exploration, research, and engagement with a wide range of skilled practitioners, by author Neil Mercer. Both journeys, although physically, intellectually and often scientifically demanding, have been revelatory and, as a result, our relationship with Dartmoor can never be quite the same again.

Only a few people today have acquired the age-old skill of recognising tin ore among the granite hills and tors of Dartmoor. Even fewer have attempted to smelt tin ore and convert it into metal. Neil Mercer has achieved both to a remarkable degree of excellence.

The book captures this ethereal, spiritual quality through images, especially those of the tin faces and the granite face specially cast and sculpted. Neil Mercer’s achievement is, frankly, beyond normal reckoning. It is rooted in the Dartmoor landscape and in its mineral veins of tin, in the tinners themselves, and in those with superlative modern technical, craft and artistic ability.