Welsh Journals

Ancient Mines in Montgomeryshire. (Continued). O. DAVIES. NEWTOWN. The ancient mine for argentiferous lead and copper in Newtown Park is described by Wright(1), and mentioned by Hunt(a). but otherwise there is little record of it. It does not lie within the area treated by Professor O. T. Jones in his special memoir of the Geological Survey(3), and it is not marked on the Ord- nance Survey. When the mine was examined about 1856, older workings were found. According to Wright, whose account seems exaggerated, these consisted of caves approached by a shaft from the surface and by an adit on the bank of the River Severn. They descended about eighty feet from the surface, and about thirty-five feet below the river(4). In the filling of the old workings were found many bones, thought to be of deer, and some pieces of oak. While assisting the survey and examination of ancient mines in Wales undertaken by a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, I enquired of Canon J. E. Morgan whether he knew the mine in New- town Park. With difficulty he found some one who remembered the site, and he conducted me to it. Permission to excavate was kindly given by the agent, Mr. Bennett Lloyd. The mine lies about a mile west of Newtown, on the bank of the Severn, which at this point flows northward before turning east round Newtown Hall Park. The site is not marked on O.S. Montgomery 43 N.W.(5). There are two workings, a low level adit eleven feet above the river, with no tip, which looks more modem but is blocked; and a higher-level adit here described, which prob- ably communicated with a shaft 50 feet to the south. (See Fig. 1). The vein was probably exposed on the face of the cliff, which descends over forty feet to the River Severn. It strikes in a north-westerly direction and dips almost vertically. It is said to be four feet wide in the main adit; but at a lower level, just above the river, its width is not more than a few inches. It con- (1) Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society," XI (1888), p. 272. (2) British Mining." (3) No. 20: The Mining District of North Cardigan and West Montgomery." (4) Level taken at the time of excavation, March 24, 1937, when the river was high as the result of heavy snow. (5) The coordinates are 1.1" south, 2.3" east.