Dolaucothi Gold Mines
About
Roman engineers cut miles of leats across the Cothi valley to feed hydraulic mining at Britain's only known Roman gold mine, sluicing hillsides much as Las Medulas was worked in Spain. The longest of these channels ran roughly seven miles from the River Cothi, with a second leat drawing extra water from the River Annell to power the hushing that stripped soil from the gold-bearing rock. A fort called Luentinum stood guard nearby from around 78 CE, its garrison overseeing convict labor in the shafts until the post was abandoned around 125 CE. Mining here had been underway for more than forty years by 117 CE.
What happened here
Work goes on underground by lamplight in shifts, and the lamp is also the clock. Galleries follow the ore, propped with timber, drained by wooden screws and bucket wheels worked by hand in stages up the shaft. Ventilation is a second shaft and a fire to draw the air. The labour is convicts, slaves and paid men working side by side on different terms, and the paid men do the skilled cutting. Above ground the ore is crushed, washed in long channels, and smelted, and the smoke kills the vegetation for miles. Mines of any size are imperial property, leased to contractors under written regulations covering shifts, drainage, bath-house charges and who may open a new gallery. Settlements grow around them fast and empty just as fast.
In ancient writing
- Tacitus, Agricola 12
States that Britain produces gold, silver, and other metals, the province's mineral wealth that mines such as this one extracted.
Sources
Nearby
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