About Us

Sarn Helen Gold is a junior Welsh gold exploration company run by Welsh and Wales-based geologists and mining engineers.

Sarn Helen Gold was set up in 2019 and currently has 4 exploration licence areas (Crown Estate Option Agreements) comprising 1000 km2 land between Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, surronding the historic Dolaucothi gold mine, and are actively exploring for gold in all of these areas.

Sarn Helen Gold has also recently aquired a further licence area in the Southern Uplands of Scotland.

History of Gold in Wales

  • ~ 75 AD

    ROMANS START MINING AT DOLAUCOTHI

  • 1887

    MINING RECOMMENCES

    1887

  • 1939

    DOLAUCOTHI MINE CLOSES

  • 2021

    Sarn Helen Gold starts exploring

    2021

The Roman Period

Gold was being mined in Wales prior to the Roman arrival in 43AD and so we can say for certain that gold mining and exploration in Wales started over 2000 years ago. Wales as such did not exist then but there were four Welsh tribes one of which, the Silures (from which the Geological time period of Silurian was derived) was based in SE Wales and was likely responsible for any mining and trading of this around Europe.

The Romans came because they knew there was gold and lead in particular. They had developed expertise for mining these metals elsewhere in Europe and wanted to expand their portfolio.

Very soon after arrival they headed west to take on the Silures, and once subdued/assimilated established a gold mine and fort at Pumsaint (Ogofau) in South Wales and commenced mining on a more industrial scale.

The Romans used what we would regard as fairly simple techniques to break up the rock and recover free/weathered out gold while their exploration was focussed on looking for tightly folded sediments as they had Identified a connection between this and the presence of veining. Best guesses are that the Roman workings at Dolaucothi produced some 30,000 ounces of gold from about half a million tonnes of rock.

The Roman workings sit within our Dolaucothi Option Agreement but we have no intent to disturb the remaining Roman archaeology which provides an insight into life in Wales in this area at that time. The aim within our Dolaucothi Option Agreement is to look for extensions to what the Romans mined and associated structures while our other option agreements are located in areas where the rocks and structures are similar to those at Dolaucothi and which we consider also have equal potential to contain gold.

2023 marks a century of Welsh gold being used by members of the British Royal Family to create their wedding rings. This tradition was founded by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, then Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, on her marriage to the Duke of York on 26th April, 1923. No gold has however been mined in Wales this century.

Mining Heritage

The first post-Roman mining at Ogofau was in 1887 and between then and 1912 it was operated by a variety of companies but production during this time has been estimated to be only about 100 ounces in total.

Roman Deeps Ltd then carried out exploration between 1933 and 1934 and between 1935 and 1936 reportedly mined some 300 tonnes of ore containing 260 oz gold and outlined a further 150,000 tonnes ore at a grades varying between 8.5 and 17.0 g/t Au.

British Goldfields (No 1) Ltd then mined 16,862 tonnes of ore for 1,388 ounces in 1938. A proportion of the gold mined was free and another proportion within arsenopyrite and the latter was being sent to Germany for processing. Unsurprisingly mining stopped at the outset of WW2 and the workings were allowed to flood.

Most recently, Anglo Canadian Exploration carried out exploration between 1975 and 1990 with a lot of the work actually being done by Cardiff University’s MINEX department. This included several drillholes some of which intersected gold bearing quartz veins. Anglesey Mining then undertook further exploration and drilled two more holes between 1995 and 2005 but no serious exploration has been done since. Throughout this period, the MINEX department used the mine as a training field centre. Two of our directors spent a significant amount of time at Dolaucothi when studying at Cardiff University variously developing their practical geological and mining skills, taking tours underground and doing exploration work for Anglo Canadian.

The Dolaucothi Mine is now run as a tourist attraction by the National Trust and is well worth a visit.

The prestige of

Welsh Gold

So why is Welsh gold so prized? It boils down to scarcity —Welsh gold is considered to be the rarest in the world.

Wales’ last commercial goldmine has long since closed.  No gold has been commercially mined in Wales since 1938.

The remaining supplies of mined gold have been mixed with other gold bullion ever since to produce jewellery. The royal wedding rings, however, are pure Welsh gold—the most recent are probably made from a 1kg chunk of Welsh gold presented to the Queen in 1999 by the Clogau mine.

A century of royal weddings

Royal Heritage