Powys Metal Mines Survey
lies in the community of Carreghofa in the county of Powys. It is located at Ordnance Survey national grid reference SJ26602222 .
The mine is recorded in the CPAT Historic Environment Record as number 30 and this number should be quoted in all correspondence.
Lead/Copper (Pre-Roman ?/Roman/19th century)
Carboniferous limestones altered to dolomites in places with mudstone bands. The main lode strikes NNE with lead & copper ores, cerussite & malachite, as secondary oxidation products.
The main level is entered via a cavernous entrance from which radiate a number of narrow galleries connecting small chambers.
There are numerous calcited stacked deads at least one group of which are thought to be Roman in date. Many of the small galleries are choked at the back by waste material.
The 19th c. shaft, sunk in 1823, connects to a central main chamber (the Shaft Chamber) which was clearly not acessible from the entrance chamber at this time. Many of the earliest narrow workings were widened out in at least two recognisable subsequent
phases of extraction at a later date.
Some shot-holes have been recognised in the Shaft Chamber area.
Lead smelting is perhaps evidenced by the reported former existence of 'bole hills' on top of the hill which were destroyed by the golf course.
Members of the Early Mines Research Group visited Llanymynech Ogof on 16/3/92. No evidence to suggest that the mine is Prehistoric was found but it was suggested that the mine has characteristic features of Roman and perhaps immediately Pre-Roman origin.
This HTML page is reproduced from the Powys and Clwyd Metal Mine Surveys which were undertaken between May 1992 and December 1993 by Mark Walters and Pat Frost of the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust with financial support from Powys County Council, Clwyd County Council and Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments. Further information about this site is available in CPAT's Regional Historic Environment Record.
Page produced by Rachel Stebbings and Chris Martin.
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