Powys Metal Mines Survey

Nant y Garw

Geology
Silurian rocks of the Tarranon and Llandovery series. Chalybite gangue with galena. The lode strikes north/south.

Workings
There is a single shaft with an adit lower down the Nant Y Carw to the east close to the pumping wheelpit. The shaft has a well preserved wooden frame at its rim.

Transport
The ore was transported to the dressing floor above by an incline . The concentrate was transported from the mine along a precipitous miners track which was blasted out of the hillside of Craig Rhiwnant. This is a spectacular piece of engineering but is unfortunately being badly eroded by land slips where stream culverts under the track have become blocked. A leat contours the hillside from Llyn Carw and supplies water to the dressing floors for over a mile from its source. The leat was constructed in 1893.

Power
There is a wheelpit below the shaft which was presumably pumping the shaft by a line of pumping rods. There is some mention of a water turbine and standby steam or gas engine on the site at a later date. On the dressing floors machinery bases are present but there are no details of the power source.

Processing
A stone breaker, crusher and jigger platforms are present. The main processing mill foundations are extensive and it would be interesting to know what machines were being used. There are a number of fragments of wooden troughs present on the north side of the dressing mill. A single round buddle was seen just to the west of the shaft below the tailings tip. The upper part of the mill structure contains evidence of small ore chutes to lower dressing areas in the mill. There are slimes pits adjacent to the shaft.

Other features
The foundations of barracks and a mine office together with a smithy are present on the main mine site while to the east at SN87716067 is a small magazine which is intact except for a failing roof.

Comments
Scheduled 1997.