Location
SH 720 232

Directions
You will need an O/S map. Heading from Trawsfyndd to Dolgellau, pass the Coed y Brenin centre, ass the turn for the Gwynfynydd Mine, through Ganllwyd and you will see some elevated houses on your right with what appears to be a farmers gate and a lane beyond.

Go through the gate and follow the road (drive) steeply uphill until the road forks right to a house and left onto a forest track. Follow the forest track for a short distance and park on a large sweeping bend. Take a footpath to the left for a short distance to a stile in a wall with a makeshift (two half logs) bridge across a stream.

Here you will see ruined buildings in a field in front of you – head to them and you will pass over the miners track which you take at 90 degrees to your left following it a short distance to an obvious spoil heap and ruined building – this is the main adit. The other adits are all above in an oxbow up along the ridge of the mountain.

Access
The main adit is locked and gated as a bat roost
The other adits are mainly open with some collapsed

Suggested Equipment
Some adits can be done with no equipment whilst some shafts would only be accessible with SRT and proper rigging

Length
All adits are relatively short. The longest open one being around 750 feet

Flood Risk
One open adit was flooded over knees (early summer) and there is a flooded shaft in an upper adit. The risk is unknown in the parts where SRT is required but otherwise there appears to be minimal risk.

Mine Attributes
Gold

Description
An interesting and different mine. Part of the Clogau gold belt, the gold here was (is?) visible rather than being dissolved and is the rose gold associated with Clogau.

It appears that a lot of the vein was worked to the surface leaving fenced gouges in the mountainside.

The main adit is inaccessible due to a bat roost but other adits above are interesting.

An adit just above is dry and lengthy with copper sulphate flows and the sleepers still remaining from the mining cart track.

There is a small, flooded adit to the other side of the lower workings which is heavily decorated with copper and iron formations.

In another adit higher up there is part of the vein still present with some evidence and potential prospect it may contain traces of gold.

Some adits are collapsed however and part of the system appears to only be accessible by SRT through a shaft because of it.

Unexplored Passages
Numerous areas are unexplored

Digs
None known

Links
None Known

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Nice pictures Ian, I particularly like to last but one, nice lighting.

Agree with JohnO, great pics...must get out to this mine.

Update: and we did! Thanks for the info Ian.

Nice Photos, The grotto and New California? are great:)

JohnO

Thanks John, glad you liked the pics. On Wilkinson's Gazetteer of mines, the location by the processing floor is called "New California", although I suspect it's just an alternative name for the mine itself.