There had been small-scale mining in Wales in the pre-Roman
British Iron Age, but it would be undertaken on an industrial scale under the
Romans, who completed their conquest of Wales in AD 78. Substantial quantities of gold,
copper, and
lead were extracted, along with lesser amounts of
zinc and
silver. Mining would continue until the process was no longer practical or profitable, at which time the mine would be abandoned. The extensive excavations of the Roman operations at
Dolaucothi provide a picture of the high level of
Roman technology and the expertise of
Roman engineering in the ancient era. Soon after the fall of the Roman empire, mining quickly became unprofitable and most investors and buissnesspeople sold their shares. In the 1600s, around the age of an increased population, slate mining had started, and by the 1750s, the mining industry there had struck almost every type of material imaginable, making it a hub of mining.
Coal mining During the first half of the nineteenth century mining was often at the centre of working-class discontent in Wales, and a number of uprisings such as the
Merthyr Rising in 1831 against employers were a characteristic of the
Industrial Revolution in Wales,
Dic Penderyn became a martyr to industrial workers. The
Chartist movement and the 1839
Newport Rising showed the growing concerns and awareness of the work force of their value to the nation. There is a well-known mining song part in Welsh and part in English: I am a little collier and gweithio underground The raff will never torri when I go up and down It's bara when I'm hungry And cwrw when I'm dry It's gwely when I'm tired And nefoedd when I die The complete English translation is as follows: I am a little collier and working underground The rope will never break when I go up and down It's bread when I'm hungry And beer when I'm dry It's bed when I'm tired And heaven when I die Despite the discontent, many miners continued to work, powering the global economy at their expense.
Government schemes to assist disabled coal miners Post-World War II, the decline of the Welsh coal industry prompted efforts to re-employ miners with disabilities, many of whom suffered from
pneumoconiosis (a lung disease prevalent among miners). Exacerbating the structural and economic nature of this crisis was ''The 1943 Workmen's Compensation Act'', a landmark law addressing pneumoconiosis. However, it had a major drawback: only miners who worked between 1934 and 1942 were eligible for compensation. This left out many miners who had developed the disease before 1934 and were now disabled, denying them crucial support. The Grenfell scheme, named after
MP Dai Grenfell, aimed to establish factories in
South Wales that would employ a high proportion of disabled workers. Ten new factories were established across South Wales, in towns like
Ammanford,
Garnant,
Tonypandy, and
Ystalyfera.The total cost for this construction project reached £400,000. Historian Steven Thompson of
Aberystwyth University, states that those behind the Grenfell scheme were keen to avoid creating a system where disabled miners felt isolated or inferior. They sought to avoid these workers being segregated in "sheltered" workplaces, but instead integrated into regular factory environments. This meant that miners with pneumoconiosis would work alongside 'healthy' colleagues in standard industrial settings, contributing to the factory's commercial operation. The factories were incentivized with rent reductions to encourage businesses to participate. However, the scheme faced challenges, including difficulty attracting tenants and unstable employment opportunities due to many factories exclusively producing
luxury goods, for whom demand was fickle and often low. Other criticism was that the factories should have been operated by state-owned enterprises creating equipment for nationalised sectors of the British economy, versus being fully private-sector driven. Ultimately, the Grenfell scheme had only limited success in reducing disabled unemployment. In contrast, the
Remploy scheme, a government initiative, focused on providing sheltered employment for severely disabled individuals (including, but not limited to former coal miners) in need of specialized working conditions. Remploy factories were non-competitive and non-profit, receiving government subsidies to cover higher operating costs. The first Remploy factory in Britain opened in
Bridgend in 1946, and by the mid-1950s, over a sixth of all Remploy workers in Britain were located in Wales. While historians note it is difficult to assess Remploy's overall success in the context of disabled Welsh coal miners specifically, it played a vital role in offering social and economic support to those excluded from mainstream employment.
Big Pit National Coal Museum & other mining museums in Wales Other museums preserving the memories and heritage of the coal mining industry in Wales are at: •
South Wales Miners' Museum near
Cymmer •
Cefn Coed Colliery Museum near
Crynant •
Rhondda Heritage Park near
Trehafod Slate quarrying There has been
slate quarrying in Wales since the
Roman period, when
slate was used to
roof the fort at
Segontium, now
Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in northwest
Wales, including the
Penrhyn Quarry near
Bethesda, the
Dinorwic Quarry near
Llanberis, the
Nantlle Valley quarries, and
Blaenau Ffestiniog, where the slate was
mined rather than
quarried. Penrhyn and Dinorwig were the two largest slate quarries in the world, and the
Oakeley mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog was the largest slate mine in the world. Slate is mainly used for roofing, but is also produced as thicker slab for a variety of uses including flooring, worktops and
headstones. The slate industry in North Wales gained
World Heritage Site status in 2021, whilst Welsh slate has been designated by the
International Union of Geological Sciences as a
Global Heritage Stone Resource.
Metal mining Metal mining in
Wales affected large areas of what are now very rural parts of
Wales and left behind a legacy of contaminated waste heaps and a very few ruined buildings. There are a number of areas that have been mined for a variety of
metals. {{quote|[In Wales,] :Valeys bryngeþ forþ food, :And hilles metal riȝt good
Gold mining Gold was mined as early as the
Roman period at
Dolaucothi in
Carmarthenshire and possibly elsewhere. In the 19th century gold was being extracted from a number of small mines at the southern end of Snowdonia with most activity centred in the valley of the
River Mawddach and its tributaries.
Lead and silver The principal areas were centred on the upland areas of the
River Ystwyth and
River Rheidol with some outliers to the east in the catchment of the
River Severn and some to the south in the headwaters of the
River Teifi. The largest of these mines were the
Cwmystwyth and Rheidol United mines in Cwm Rheidol. The ore extracted was
galena which in many cases had a high
silver content, especially at Cwm Ystwyth. It also occurred alongside large quantities of
sphalerite, the principal ore of
zinc. However, the zinc was only occasionally processed and much remains on the very extensive discard heaps around the mines. Amongst the very many mines that have existed the following list identifies those known to have existed between the 17th and 19th centuries in north
Cardiganshire and west
Montgomeryshire: Aberffrwd, Alma, Blaenceunant, Blaencwmsymlog, Bron floyd, Bryn Glas, Bwa Drain, Bwlch, Cwm Mawr,
Cwmystwyth, Cwm Ystwyth South, Cwm Ystwyth West, Cwmbryno, Cwmdarren,
Cwmsymlog, De Broke, Dyffryn Castell, Elgar, Esgair Lle,
Esgairmwyn, Fron Goch, Fron Goch East, Gelli, Glog fach, Glog Fawr, Goginan, Goginan west, Graig Goch, Grogwynion, Gwaith coch, Lisburne South, Llwynmalus,
Llywernog, Logau Las, Melindwr, Mynyddgorddu, Nanteos, Pen Rhiw, Powell, Rheidol United, Temple, Ystumtuen Metal
mining in the
Gwydir Forest dates back to the 17th century, but its heyday came in the latter half of the 19th century. These mines predominantly produced
lead and
zinc, and the last mine to close – Park Mine – closed in the 1960s. Smaller areas of lead exploitation included
Halkyn Mountain in
Flintshire and in the Clyne valley in west
Swansea.
Copper Copper mining is probably the oldest known mining activity in Wales with documented evidence of
Bronze Age mining on the
Great Orme near
Llandudno and at
Copa Hill in the valley of the
River Ystwyth in
Ceredigion. Further
copper discoveries were exploited in
Snowdonia just to the east of
Beddgelert where the
Sygun Copper Mine, within the
Snowdonia National Park, gives an idea of the conditions faced by copper miners and is a popular tourist attraction. In the 18th century the massive deposits of copper together with a range of other metals was discovered and exploited at
Parys Mountain on
Anglesey.
Iron Commercial
iron ore exploitation has been relatively uncommon in Wales during the last hundred years, despite the dominance of the
iron and
steel industry in South Wales. However
ironstone is a component of the Lower Coal Measures rock sequence and where it outcrops along the northern edge of the
South Wales Coalfield, it was extensively worked for the production of iron and was important in the initiation of the
Industrial Revolution in South Wales. Commercial exploitation also took place in the
Vale of Glamorgan. The
Forest of Dean was an important source of iron for many centuries, and dates from at least the Roman period.
Lead Lead ore was first mined in
North Wales during
Roman times at
Pentre Halkyn to be smelted at
Flint. The lead that was produced there was stamped with the inscription
Deceangli, which was the name of the
Celtic tribe occupying the area. In the 17th century an intensive period of Welsh lead mining commenced, bringing a large number of miners from
Derbyshire into Wales. There are substantial reserves of the metal in
Ceredigion, probably first exploited in the Roman period, and extensively during the revival of metal mining in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I.
Arsenic Arsenic has been mined in association with metals and in Wales commercial extraction has probably only occurred in the Clyne valley near Swansea. ==Working mines==