Location
SH 850 306
Directions
From Bala, drive past the lake heading to Dolgellau and take a right turn along a “B” road heading to Trawsfynydd around ½ mile after the end of the lake. Travel for around 1.5miles and park next to an old phone box on the left by a bridge. Walk over the bridge and straight across an immediate small crossroads past two domestic properties and through a gate into a field (it’s a public footpath). There is a “blown up” copy of the O/S map on this gate helpfully showing you EXACTLY where the mine is.
Pass through the gate heading upwards with the steep rocky hill to your right and you will see the entrance adit to right fairly low down with spoil heaps higher on the hillside (stay at the low entrance)
Access
Unknown. Ungated.
Suggested Equipment
There is a rope inside, the top of which cannot be reached without SRT. The mine can be mostly explored without any special equipment.
Length
Circa, ¾ mile of passage in total
Flood Risk
The entrance adit is flooded (just under waist depth when I was there) and the water mark suggests that water has been above head height. There is therefore an inherent risk of flooding although it is likely that this was due to the entrance adit being once blocked.
Mine Attributes
Gold, Copper and Lead
Description
This mine is on the opposite side of the extinct volcano that produced the gold mines near Dolgellau. It was worked until 1905 and enough gold was extracted to make a Royal chalice.
The entrance is flooded and unless you have very tall legs, or you are a female, you will get wet goollies. There is a very interesting example of a strange mineral part way down the entrance adit which may be Lapis Lazuli (it’s easy to miss).
There is a very clearly worked vein with part of the gold bearing ore still in situ (none visible) and a huge amount of stacked deads going to the ceiling (quite something to see and impossible to photograph). The false ceiling holding the deads has collapsed around 10 feet in preventing further footsteps in that direction.
There is also a flooded winze leading to a lower level but no evidence of a lower entrance on the surface.
The minerals seeping through the walls are a spectacle. There are the obvious sulphur, iron and copper minerals but the starkness of the colours (especially the white calcite) and the jet black tarry substance (manganese?) is stunning.
There is a drilled shaft (drilled from above downwards) with a rope hanging down. This can be free climbed for about 60 feet (it isn’t quite vertical) but the last 15-20 feet ARE vertical and could not be ascended. It is not an SRT rope and I doubt it would pass through a Petzl stop. At the top of the rope was another adit level but this was impossible to get to.
On the surface, higher up the steep, rocky hill is a spoil heap and this is where the vein opened to surface. This opening cannot be entered except by SRT. It is likely that this will connect to the adit level which could not be reached from below.
Unexplored Passages
A higher adit level remains unexplored
Digs
None
Links
www.mine-explorer.co.uk/mines/Castell-ca...stell-carndochan.asp
beta.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/Story/...rom-solid-welsh-gold
bcra.org.uk/pub/search/aut_nc2.htm
