A new perspective on Bryntail Lead Mine

HERITAGE IN WALES ISSUE 71 The remains of Bryntail Lead Mine, Powys, including the gable end of the baryte factory and the lead crushing mill in front of it.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON

Bryntail Lead Mine

Cadw has recently invested in new interpretation at Bryntail Lead Mine in Powys. As part of this process, researcher and writer John Charlesworth explored the monument’s history and discovered that it was a struggle against bankruptcy that left us with an eccentric set of ruins…

The ruins of the lead mine buildings beneath the Clywedog dam. The location of the lead crushing mill (in the middle of the image), so close to the riverbank, is unusual.

Nestled in a deep valley above Llanidloes, visitors cannot fail to be struck by Bryntail’s dramatic location. It stands by a rushing mountain river, wild and lonely. With the gigantic dam of the Clywedog reservoir towering over it, it is both beautiful and awe-inspiring.

The surviving ruins are dwarfed by the 1960s dam. Close up they are substantial and complex; too complex for ordinary lead-ore processing. Dating mostly from the second half of the nineteenth century, there are the remains of dressing buildings, a mine office, smithy and store building, a leat which carried water from the nearby river Clywedog, an incline, tramway track beds and buildings for pumping and winding machinery. One deep adit is clearly visible and there are massive Yorkshire stone slab tanks, ore bins, roasting ovens, washing machinery — such as buddles and jiggers — and a wheelpit, 18.2 metres (60 feet) deep.

But there are incongruities. The lead crushing mill sits close to the river in the foot of the valley. Ordinarily, the crushing mill should be placed above the rest of the lead mining works to take advantage of gravity; ore entering at the top and emerging crushed at the bottom, before being processed — sorted, washed and separated — using water power from a 7-metre (24-foot) waterwheel. But at Bryntail, the mill is too close to the river, requiring a huge effort to barrow the ore back up the hill to be processed after being crushed.

And at the top of the site, where the crushing mill should stand, there’s a factory for producing baryte, a useful mineral product used in paint manufacture in the nineteenth century. To make it was a complicated and costly labour-intensive process that required crushing, boiling and drying.

According to Nigel Chapman from the Welsh Mines Preservation Trust, Bryntail is unique: ‘no other mine has as much processing of baryte on site’. So why here? At the root of the mystery is money or, in Bryntail’s case, the lack of it, despite the fact that the mid-nineteenth century was a boom time for lead-prospecting as burgeoning industrial cities demanded roofing and plumbing.

In 1851, Bryntail’s owners had hoped to take advantage of this. The mine had been successful when it was first worked in the eighteenth century so it must have seemed a safe bet to start again. At first, things went well and hopes of success were raised again in 1868 when the nearby Van mine struck a rich seam of ore that made its investors wealthy. In 1869, Bryntail’s owners even formed a new company called The Van Consuls Lead and Barytes Mining Company in the hope that their neighbour’s luck would rub off. But, at Bryntail, the initial pocket of ore ran out and later finds were short-lived too, setting a pattern for the next 30 years.

Then there was Bryntail’s mine captain, Cornishman James Roach, who arrived in 1853 and stayed for nearly 30 years. He must have been skilled and enterprising, but also charismatic,

The main processing room in the baryte factory contained stone tanks — seen here — filled with dilute sulphuric acid to dissolve away impurities in the baryte ore. The resulting white mineral would then be transferred to a room next door to be dried.

persuasive and over-optimistic. Roach had a gift for getting money from his investors and every profit-making possibility, however remote, produced a new scheme.

As prospects for major lead discoveries waxed and waned, the owners turned to baryte production for income, converting the existing ore-crushing mill into a factory. Later, when lead seemed viable again, they had no choice but to build a new crushing mill in the only place left: near the river. It was this desperate hunt for profit that led to the eccentric buildings at Bryntail.

Mining was a family affair and, for the families working the mines, life was hard. Before the ore entered the crushing mill, women and children as young as nine reduced it to lumps of no more than 1 cubic inch in size using hammers and muscle power.

There is, however, no evidence for a village at Bryntail, meaning that it is likely that the workers lodged in local farm buildings and walked home on Sundays. Unlike neighbouring Van, Bryntail could not afford to provide housing for its workers.

Roach retired in 1883 and mining at Bryntail ceased in 1884. Fourteen years of mining for baryte between 1869 and 1883 only produced 1,028 tons of workable ore — hardly a good offer!

Nature has slowly reclaimed Bryntail, but the ruins in Cadw’s care remain as evidence of the triumph of hope over experience. New interpretation panels will appear at the site in the spring of 2021 — COVID-19 restrictions allowing.

Rusting remains of machinery used to process baryte.

The new interpretation includes reconstruction drawings of the site in operation (Illustration by Chris Smith).