Dolaucothi History

• Archaeological evidence suggests the Romans established a gold mine and fort at Pumpsaint (Ogofau) in South Wales and commenced mining on an industrial scale using what we would regard as simple techniques to break up the rock and recover free/weathered out gold. Meanwhile 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 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 raised capital of some £200,000 and 1937 and mined 16,862 tonnes of ore for 1388 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.
• 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 baring 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.
• Notably in the late 1970s and early 1980s the MINEX department used the mine as a training field centre and it is now run as a tourist attraction by the National Trust.