Located in the valley of the Redwater Brook, to the east of the B3212 Moretonhampstead to Princetown road, below the Warren House Inn, the mine was worked between the mid–18th century and 1925.

By the 1780s Vitifer was being operated by the Dartmoor Mining and Smelting Company, and in 1796 it was said to be employing 40 men.

[1] the accommodation offered … is so wretched that they are obliged to succeed each other in the same bed, which is thus in use throughout the 24 hours.In 1834 the mine was reported to be "large and profitable", but the conditions for the more than 100 employees, including women and children, were very poor and many of the miners there were said to be refugees from other districts on account of petty crimes they had committed.

At this time, one of the men who worked underground at Birch Tor said that the quality of the air down the mine was so bad that "it killed scores of miners".

It was around this time that it was discovered that the deeper excavations were not producing the quality of ore that had been expected,[2] unlike many of the mines in Cornwall which proved to be richer in tin at depth.