Llanrwst Lead Mine

18m stone-and-brick built chimney stack, engine and boiler house

Date	21 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 77961 59327; 53.11710°N, 3.82491°W
Information	The Llanrwst Lead Mine engine and boiler house stands in ruins adjacent to the grounds of Nant Bwlch yr Haearn Outdoor Education Centre in Gwydyr Forest. Built in 1876, the structure housed an 11-ton Cornish boiler and a 25-inch-cylinder condensing engine. The steam engine drove a winding drum and also supplied power, transmitted via a line of flat rods, to the nearby Endean Shaft, where a pumping system drained the mine.

Parc Lead Mine

Outfall from adit

Date	21 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 78749 60143; 53.12461°N, 3.81344°W
Information	Of the numerous lead mines in Gwydyr Forest, Parc Mine was the largest, most successful and the last to close. Official records of production date back to 1860, when the mine was operated as Gwydyr Park Consols by the D’Ersby and Gwydyr Company. There were a number of lengthy interruptions during its history and work at the mine ended in 1958. It was later used in 1962-3 for experiments into automated milling before finally closing for good. Rock extracted from the mine was crushed on site and the lead and zinc ores separated before being sent elsewhere for further processing. Today there remains very little of the surface structures at the mine. In fact, remedial work was undertaken to revegetate the site in the 1970s in order to reduce the environmental impact from contamination from the spoil heaps. Erosion of the tailings was allowing lead and zinc to leach out into the nearby stream. Polluted water then entered the Afon Conwy, affecting agricultural land on its flood plain downstream. To counteract this, the waste tip was regraded, capped with a layer of shale and then seeded with a resistant species of grass. Parc Mine played a role in a research project investigating the elastic behaviour of the Earth’s structure. Between 1972 and 1975, researchers from Bidston Observatory, Birkenhead set up a monitoring station in one of the mine’s tunnels 41m below ground. Loading on the surface of the Earth by the sea varies with the tides and this in turn causes variations in the tilt of land relatively close to the coast. Accurately measuring these perturbations and correlating them with the movements of the tides allows information about the elastic properties of the upper strata of the Earth to be inferred. The final conclusion of the project, however, was that, owing in part to deformations of the cavity of the tunnel itself, measurements of a high enough accuracy could not be obtained in mines and that boreholes would provide a more suitable location for this type of investigation. Parc Lead Mine (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)

Pandora Lead Mine

Spoil heaps, with Moel Siabod in the background

Date	21 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 76764 60269; 53.12528°N, 3.84314°W
Information	This is one of the many lead mines in Gwydyr Forest and was operated between 1889 and 1906 by the Welsh Crown Spelter Company. The mine appeared variously on Ordnance Survey maps as: Willoughby Lead mine (1889); Welsh Foxdale Lead Mine (1900); New Pandora Lead Mine (1913). Ore won from the mine was transported via a 2.8 km tramway along the eastern shore of Llyn Geirionydd and then down a 200m-long aerial ropeway to be processed at Klondyke Mill (then the New Pandora Lead Works). New Pandora Mine (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)

Clogwyn y Fuwch Slate Quarry

Clogwyn y Fuwch Quarry – chamber on level 4

Date	14 July 2012
Location	Mynydd Deulyn, Gwydyr Forest	SH 75910 61919; 53.13992°N, 3.85653°W
Information	Mynydd Deulyn (two-lake mountain) rises between, and just over 200m above, the lakes Llyn Crafnant and Llyn Geirionydd in the Gwydyr Forest. Perched up on its northern face sits Clogwyn y Fuwch (cow cliff). The quarry there is thought to be one of the oldest slate mines in Wales. It comprises five levels linked by an incline with adjacent spoil heap clinging to the vertiginous slope. Large caverns were quarried at Clogwyn y Fuwch, a practice which became outmoded in the later 19th century, being superseded by safer methods employing honeycombed chambers. William Turner — who was later to turn his attentions to quarrying concerns at Blaenau Ffestiniog — obtained a lease on the quarry in the 1790s and it was worked by Cumbrian miners, who brought with them characteristic techniques such as the use of dry-stone lined, cut-and-cover ‘Matt-Spedding’ tunnels and also the siting of slate splitting and dressing huts (waliau) inside the caverns themselves. Clogwyn-y-Fuwch quarry (Treasure Maps); Unfinished Business at Clogwyn-y-Fuwch (Treasure Maps)

Klondyke Mill (2)

Klondyke Mill

Date	14 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 76677 62052; 53.14129°N, 3.84512°W
Information	Klondyke Mill More posts about Gwydyr Forest

Bryn Cenhadon Mine

Bryn Cenhadon Mine

Date	14 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 76635 61803; 53.13904°N, 3.84567°W
Information	Bryn Cenhadon was one of the many lead mines on the Gwydir Estate and is located on the river just north of Llyn Geirionydd. There are workings above the waterfall, as shown here, and also on both banks of the Afon Geirionydd in the ravine below the waterfall. The mine is mentioned in Robert Hunt’s 1873 Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. More posts about Gwydyr Forest

Klondyke Lead Mine

Klondyke Lead Mine

Date	7 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 76511 61982; 53.14062°N, 3.84758°W
Information	This adit, part of Klondyke Lead Mine or the nearby Bryn Cenhadon Mine, is one of several on the banks of the Afon Geirionydd in the ravine situated between Klondyke Mill and the northern end of Llyn Geirionydd. More posts in the Gwydyr Forest series

Klondyke Mill

Klondyke Mill, western elevation

Date	7 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 76522 62182; 53.14242°N, 3.84750°W
Information	Lead mining in the Gwydyr Forest area dates back to around 1615, when John Wynn, 1st Baronet, had samples of ore from his Gwydir Estate analysed. Mining activity in the area, in a total of about 21 mines, continued until the early 20th century. Klondyke Mill was built in 1899 and first appeared in the Ordnance Survey map in its 1914 edition as the New Pandora Lead Works. The mine at the mill was never very productive and the majority of the ore processed there came from the Pandora mine at the southern end of Llyn Geirionydd. The ore was conveyed via a tramway along the eastern shore of the lake and then down a 200m-long aerial ropeway from the tramway terminus some 65m above the mill. The mill was powered by water from the lake, its 82 hp turbine being fed via a 15 inch pipe. The site was also known as the Crown Spelter Mill, but the name Klondyke comes from the time after the First World War when the mill was operated by the Devon and Crafnant Mining Syndicate. The latter was owned by Joseph Aspinall, a fraudster who was indicted in 1922 for misappropriation of funds in a confidence trick at the mine, the proceeds of which he had used to fund his lavish lifestyle. Aspinall had claimed to have discovered a vast deposit of silver and brought parties of investors, many of whom were rich elderly ladies, up from London to visit the mine. The glittering faces of the tunnels that they were shown were not, however, a massive lode of silver, but in fact 20 tons of lead concentrate purchased from Cornwall and applied to the tunnel walls. Gwydyr Forest

Llyn Geirionydd

Llyn Geirionydd

Date	7 July 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 76086 60336; 53.12573°N, 3.85329°W
Information	The 0.75 mile long Llyn Geirionydd is located in the northern part of Gwydyr Forest, close to Trefriw. The lake is on the only one in Snowdonia where power boats and water skiing are permitted. The shores of the lake were home to the sixth-century bard Taliesin, the earliest Welsh-language poet whose work still survives. Llyn Geirionydd (Wikipedia)

Llyn Elsi

Looking across Llyn Elsi towards Moel Siabod

Date	26 May 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 78398 55533; 53.08311°N, 3.81694°W
Information	Llyn Elsi is a reservoir in the Gwydyr Forest about a mile to the south of the town of Betws-y-coed, to which it supplies water. The lake was dammed for this purpose in 1914. Erected in Commemoration Of the opening of the Bettwsycoed Water Works By the Rt Hon The Earl of Ancaster By whose generosity The right was granted to the Bettwsycoed U.D.C. To a water supply from Elsi Lake June 18th 1914  — monument inscription Llyn Elsi (Wikipedia)

Rhiwddolion

Rhiwddolion

Date	26 May 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest, Betws-y-coed	SH 76946 55728; 53.08453°N, 3.83868°W
Information	The ‘forgotten village’ of Rhiwddolion is a remote settlement which once housed the workers of the nearby East Arvon Quarry. Situated on the route of the Roman road Sarn Helen above Betws-y-coed, its population at the end of the 19th century was 150. But when the East Arvon and the neighbouring quarries closed in the early 20th century the workers moved away abandoning their cottages. Today four properties in the village, including the former chapel-cum-school, are let as holiday accommodation, the rest of the buildings are in ruins, slowly being reclaimed by nature. Bryn Derw; The Landmark Trust – Rhiwddolion

East Arvon Quarry

A window on the forest

Date	26 May 2012
Location	Gwydyr Forest, Rhiwddolion	SH 76635 55796; 53.08507°N, 3.84335°W
Information	This small slate quarry, whose pit and waste tips are now very overgrown, once supported a community of 150 in the nearby settlement of Rhiwddolion. The quarry produced mainly slate slabs and closed in the early 20th century.

Hafna Mine, Gwydyr Forest

Chimney, Hafna Mine processing mill

Date	15 October 2011
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 78108 60104; 53.12412°N, 3.82300°W
Information	Around 1615 Sir John Wynn, 1st Baronet, had samples of lead ore from his Gwydir Estate analysed, which then resulted in organised mining on the estate starting some five years later. Mining activity in the area, in a total of around 21 mines, was to continue for some 300 years. There are records of the Hafna lead mine being reworked from 1819 by the landowner Edward Lloyd of the Plas-yn-Cefn Estate. The first mill buildings here were built in 1879 and the mine finally closed around 1915. The Hafna Mill Complex was originally constructed in 1879 and underwent a number of changes before working ceased around 1915. Today it is still possible to identify at least three constructional phases from the surviving remains. The main area of the site comprises the mill itself which is built on four floors. It was here that the ore was crushed, sorted and concentrated prior to smelting. All mechanical processes at the mill were originally driven by a waterwheel, later replaced by a gas engine. Ore was brought into the mill from the mine via an adit and a shaft located just beyond the top floor of the mill. The ore was stored in bins and then sorted by hand on the upper, first floor of the mill. From there it was mechanically crushed on the second floor. The crushed and partially separated ore was then jigged and the larger pieces of pure ore removed for smelting. The remaining material was then buddled, a type of gravity separation process, to isolate the smaller particles of pure ore. The remains of a circular buddle pit can be seen protruding from under a later concrete floor that housed the oil flotation tanks which came to replace the earlier separation methods. The waste material from all stages of the milling process was taken by tram through tunnels on each floor to be dumped. The fine residues from the mill were collected in a large slime pit which was occasionally dug out and re-processed. Smelting House Of all the mine mill sites found within the Gwydyr Forest Park, Hafna is unique in having its own smelt house, built in the 1880s. The remains of the smelt house and adjacent blowing house can be seen behind the slime pit on the third floor level of the mill. The blowing house once housed a pair of mechanically operated bellows that generated air via pipes for the smelting hearth, located below the flue arch. The smelter would have been a relatively simple affair, probably a reverberatory furnace of Flintshire type. Ore and fuel would have been mixed together and raked in the furnace, effectively roasting the ore. As the temperature was increased the molten metal would flow to the bottom of the furnace, from where it was tapped. Because of the toxic fumes from smelting the furnace chimney was set above and away from the mill. The two were linked by a long flue, the line of which can still be seen.   — Forestry Commission Wales interpretive panels

The Grey Mare’s Tail, Gwydyr Forest

The Grey Mare's Tail

Date	15 October 2011
Location	Gwydyr Forest	SH 78965 61057; 53.13287°N, 3.81056°W
Information	The falls, with a twin cascade, are located in Coed Felin Blwm (Lead Mill Wood) on the edge of Gwydyr Forest about a mile from the town of Llanrwst in the Conwy valley. Grey Mare’s Tail, Llanrwst (Wikipedia)