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In the eighteenth century the lead miners of Cardiganshire were a very mixed lot. Many of them were part-time farmers, a fact which caused a good deal of trouble at the peat, hay, and grain harvests, for their absenteeism on those occasions prevented many a mine-manager from fulfilling his obligations to a lead merchant. There was also a number of men whose only means of livelihood was mining. Many of these were from Cornwall or Flintshire and had been brought into the county by mining promoters. These immigrants were many of them rough, hard-drinking, super- stitious, violent men living a hard life in barracks. In fact, there was a large number of Cornishmen working in the Darren Mine in the 1 740 's. Full wages were usually paid every three months and, as few of the miners could wait that period for money, subsistence money was paid to them every week, fortnight, or three weeks according to the whim of the manager. The subsistence rate was usually 6d. a stem, or shift of eight hours, but the payment often, if not usually, took the form of foodstuffs or other goods, and at prices well above those ruling in Aberystwyth at this time. It was estimated by John Paynter of Esgairmwyn that there was a certain Profit of not less than 50 Per Cent in furnishing stores and supplying the Exigencies of Poor Miners'. The miners' riots of 1759 were largely due to the high prices of foodstuffs sold to them by the mine agents. It was said of miners in the Esgairmwyn area that they were 'poor starving wretches' who would do anything to earn a morsel of bread, their sole food, and usually made of rye or a mixture of barley and rye. Often, at times of full pay, they found themselves in debt to the mine agent. Such conditions were not conducive to a quiet, well-ordered life. Ill-housed and underfed, the miners fell an easy prey to disease and their lives were usually short. So uncertain was life, especially among those whose only work was mining, that when money was available it was spent in the kind of enjoyment depicted in the song. W. J. Lewis. A FIELD DAY AT CWMSYMLOG THE purpose of the 1951 field day was a visit to what is almost certainly the most historic group of lead mines in Cardiganshire-the Darren-Cwmsymlog group. On June 30, a glorious summer afternoon, a party of about thirty people set off in a motor coach which appeared to the writer to be much too wide for the narrow lanes that lay ahead. Happily, these fears proved to be ill-founded and the transport arrangements were admirable. The first stop was made about a quarter of a mile west of Penbont-rhyd-y-beddau. Here, in a steep-sided valley, were a few waste heaps, all that can now be seen of the Bronfloyd Mine. Though not included in the original grant to the Mines Royal Society in 1568, this mine was worked by Sir Hugh Myddelton and Thomas Bushell. Bronfloyd was one of the five mountains through which the latter tunnelled 'with a cheerefulle Heart'. Nor was his optimism and industry unrewarded, for, after driving an adit for one hundred yards into the hillside, he struck a rich vein of ore which proved most profitable. Nothing further is known of the mine until 1740, when a Flintshire company of lead smelters took it over in order to secure a plentiful supply of ore for their Deeside smeltery. Their efforts proved unsuccessful and they became so in- debted to the Gogerddan estate that John Pugh Pryse took possession of the mine and its equipment which he sold, with some ore lying on the bank, in order to recoup himself for his losses. Few people are interested in a failure, and the mine lay idle