Welsh Journals

THE DECLINE OF MINING AT CWMYSTWYTH In the next few pages I am not going to give anything like a compre- hensive history of mining in the upper Ystwyth valley but am going to concentrate on the last thirty years or so of the management of the mine under Messrs. John Taylor & Co.. There is little doubt that the Romans mined for lead and copper ore at Copa Hill1 though there is, at present, no concrete proof to sub- stantiate this statement. It would also appear that the monks from the Cistercian abbey at Strata Florida worked here2 their earliest dates of working are unknown but it may be estimated as being pre- 1350. The first reference to the mine occurs in 1505 when the mine was granted to Rhys and David, the sons of Ieuan ap Hywel, by the Abbot Richard Talley of Strata Florida.3 In 1552, Camden notes the site as being very badly polluted by the activity of the smelters, thus giving some indication of the scale of former operations. All these early references show that mining was confined to Copa Hill only. After 1600 other areas were developed and references become common enough to reconstruct the more important events quite clearly. From 1500 to 1800 there were a total of 54 lessees of the mine. Some of the lessees were relatively unimportant and did little but others, such as Thomas Bonsall, worked it vigorously and developed the smaller lodes throughout the mine. The mine was in its economic heydey under Thomas Bonsall (1730- 1808), who was later knighted for this financial exploit. Bonsall was a Derbyshireman who was well acquainted with mining techniques and originally came to the Cwmystwyth Mines as a manager to the Town- sends, who had many industrial interests throughout the country. When the Townsends surrendered their lease in about 1785 they were amongst some of the most wealthy people in the land and owned copper, lead and zinc smelters, coal mines, lead and silver mines, peat works, and a mercantile business in London. They had evidently made sufficient profit at the mine, and probably had tried to smelt the zinc blende at their Bristol works, but found the quality to be too poor to warrant further expense. Bonsall, however, differed in his opinion and readily took the lease. All of his mines were successful but his methods of working left much to be desired as it was always said that a mine worked by Bonsall could not be worked in a proper manner afterwards. After his death in 1808 the lease of the mines was granted by Lady Bonsall to a local man named Joseph Jones, who resided at Blaen-y-Cwm about two miles east of the