Welsh Journals

THE ANCHOR SMELTING COMPANY, ABERYSTWYTH, 1786-1792 UNTIL the early part of the eighteenth century, lead ore was both mined and smelted in Cardiganshire. At first each mine or group of mines had its own smelting hearth or wind bole using charcoal as fuel. This made heavy demands on the local supply of timber and as early as the i56o's Leland noticed how smelting at Cwmystwyth had destroyed the woods that used to grow plentifully in that district.1 The last mention of one of these scattered smelting sites is of the one at Maen Arthur where there was a smelting mill in 1608.2 By this time a shortage of fuel was forcing smelters to concentrate their efforts in areas well supplied with timber. One of these was at the little port of Garreg on the Dovey which could be supplied with charcoal from a wide area and had twenty-two furnaces by the end of the seventeenth century.3 The other centre was described in the 1660's as being' three miles from Tallibont where there was a sufficient fall of water to turn four great wheels, whose turning guide [d] the rising and falling of the bellows and stampers This was almost certainly at Furnace, at the place which was used as an ironworks over a century later.4 In 1658 these works were visited by Ray, who described what he saw in the following words. September the 6th I travelled to Mahentler, and thence to the silver mills where I saw and learned the whole process of the work of melting and refining of silver. They have two sorts of ore, the one rich of Dorrens [Darren] and Cansomloch [Cwm- symlog], the other poorer of Talabont. They mix these, sixparts of Dorrens ore with four of Talabont, because Dorrens being rich, will not melt off the heath, without such a quantity of Talabont. Then they carry it in a barrow from the storehouse to each smelter's several bing, where it is melted with black and white coal', i.e., charcoal and sticks of wood cut into small pieces, slit and dried.5 At this time the Furnace works consisted of an ore house, stamping mills of five hearths, refining mills, red lead mills, and a mint house where silver coins had been minted during and immediately after the Civil War, when Aberystwyth Castle could not be used.4 Such was smelting and refining in Cardiganshire until the end of the seventeenth century when changes occurred which were to separate these two sections of the industry from mining. In 1678 coal was used successfully for the first time to smelt lead ore but nothing much was done until the patent then granted expired in 1692.6 Then in a short while smelteries were built on the coalfields in Flintshire and in Neath. At the end of the century, most of Cardiganshire's lead mines were taken over by Sir Humphrey Mackworth, the pioneer in lead and