DISCOVER

Th e Spirit of th e

MINERS PHOTO: © CHRIS HOWES: WILD PLACES PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Ceredigion’s once echoed with mines and now is the perfect time to step back in time and explore, as the wild hills turn copper and the vital autumnal rain falls.

WORDS: JULIE BROMINICKS

FADE TO GREY Former silver and lead mines dot the hills of Ceredigion, giving walkers a riveting insight into the county’s NOVEMBER 2015 COUNTRY WALKING 57 industrial past. DISCOVER Ceredigion

u WHEELS IN MOTION Water wheels – once a major source of power

in the mines – PHOTO: © CHRIS HOWES: WILD PLACES PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO now stand as a reminder of the region’s past.

q THE HEIGHT OF GLORY PHOTO: GILES W BENNETT The Frongoch lead and zinc mine near Pontrhydygroes, pictured in its

1900s heyday.

PHOTOGRAPH ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK ARCHIVE/ALAMY PHOTOGRAPH

© THE KEASBURY-GORDON KEASBURY-GORDON THE © PHOTO:

HE CAMBRIAN MOUNTAINS catch innkeepers, shepherds and miners – for this was a p WET WET WET clouds and store rain in their blanket time when the county’s mines were booming. Clouds are to be bogs. Water tumbles into black mires, The hills are now silent, but you can discover embraced in this hurrying streams and crashing cascades. Ceredigion’s mining history in a series of walking beautiful, rain- soaked landscape, T Stone walls and tree trunks are lush trails, developed by the Spirit of the Miners project. as seen in this view with liverwort and mossy citadels. On a damp day, Circular routes of about seven miles begin from across Cwmsymlog. drops cling like diamonds to twigs and the colours Cwmsymlog, Nant yr Arian, Talybont, Bontgoch are saturated; moss glows iridescent green, grass and Devil’s Bridge, and cross landscape s where the gleams yellow and slag heaps and crags are purple mining heritage is still visible in the ruined PHOTO: GILES W BENNETT and wet. The rain is beautiful, and for centuries it villages, slag heaps, leats and shafts along the way. was essential to the industry that mined these hills, Each trail has its own character. The Cwmsymlog providing water to power the machines that bored walk is defi ned by its restored chimney and the into the earth in search of silver and lead. colony of rare forked spleenwort creeping over the When walker and writer George Borrow ventured ruins. Red kites soar above Nant yr Arian. The over the Cambrian Mountains in 1854, the landscape Bontgoch trail climbs from the green Leri Valley he encountered was wild and wet: ‘In a little time onto the quaggy Cambrian highlands via an p LAKE VIEW I came to a slough which crossed the path. I did not exhilarating narrow path at Craig y Pistyll falls. Llyn Craig-y-Pistyll “The hills are now silent, but steve to do like the look of it at all; and to avoid it ventured upon Particularly fascinating is the Devil’s Bridge was dammed in the some green mossy-looking ground to the left, and circular, which you can reach via the Vale of 1800s to supply map to show water power to the you can discover the region’s had scarcely done so when I found myself immersed Rheidol Railway from , on the same region’s lead mines. mines & routes to the knees in a bog.’ George was halfway through track that was built to carry ore from mines to the Explore it on one mining history in a series the journey he described in his book Wild . In coast. The train climbs the gorge within touching of the Spirit of the what was then Cardiganshire and is now Ceredigion, distance of the dripping rocks, to which epiphytes Miners trails. of walking trails.” mires, mountains, rivers and the merry dialogue of cling and steam and cinders billow about views of the people he met colour his pages. They were the vale and slag heaps where pulleys once hauled u

58 COUNTRY WALKING NOVEMBER 2015 DISCOVER Ceredigion

t DEVIL’S IN THE DETAIL The Devil’s Bridge trail takes you to the three bridges stacked across the gorge.

Chalcopyrite and sphalerite containing copper and zinc lie beneath the boggy uplands, green valleys and rushing rivers, but it is lead and silver- bearing galena that was the most heavily mined ore. Continental collision created the Central Wales Ore Field between 200 and 400 million years ago, and it’s been mined since the by prehistoric people, the Romans, Cistercian monks, private landowners and Charles I, who required silver for his Aberystwyth-based mint. But it wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that the mines were seriously developed. After blasting, the ore was pulled to the surface by kibble, crushed, carried by horse or donkey to the smelters and then to Aberystwyth for export by ship. The mining companies collaborated to build roads such as the A44, with an incline that was not too steep for horses pulling heavy carts.

© CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK © CHRONICLE/ALAMY PHOTO: George Borrow walked here at the beginning of the era, which would see more than 150 lead and silver mines working the region. He described the “The splendidly gothic one at Pontrhydygroes: ‘On the right-hand side of the road were immense works of some kind in full Devil’s Bridge, where play and activity, for engines were clanging and three bridges cross the puff s of smoke were ascending from tall chimneys.’ His description still resonates, as in the centre gorge, is as compelling of the village the restored water wheel shushes and creaks, and as you climb into the quiet hills above, now as it was then.” it’s somehow still easy to imagine the din of powder blasts, and the home-bound thump of the boots ore up steep slopes, to the tracks. Like the River of hundreds of men. Rheidol, the trail darts in and out of the fecund George had a local miner guide him over the hills wooded gorge, and like George, you’ll be awed by to , but modern-day explorers can get a the cascades: ‘The fall, which is split into two, is good insight into a miner’s life by taking a guided © BRYAN EVELEIGH/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK EVELEIGH/ALAMY © BRYAN PHOTO: thundering beside you; foam foam foam is fl ying all tour into the adits, shafts and winzes at Silver about you; the basin or cauldron is boiling frightfully Mountain Museum – a disused mine at . p LOOK FOR A below you; hirsute rocks are frowning terribly above Miners typically began work at the age of seven SILVER LINING you, and above them forest trees, dank and wet with and rarely lived beyond 30. Unless they slept in Stroll around the BACK TO NATURE spray and mist, are distilling drops in showers from barracks provided at the most remote mines, their old workings of their boughs.’ The gothic Devil’s Bridge, where three shift began with a long walk over the hills. At the 18th century bridges cross the gorge, one above the other, is as Talybont there was also a smelter in the middle of Llywernog silver lead mine compelling now as it was then. the village. Poisonous water fl owed through the Moss es & �erns in Ponterwyd, Years after the last miners downed tools, There is also a 37-mile linear route between streets and the air was acrid with smoke. Bakers, Aberystwyth. nature is regaining a foothold among and , along which the grocers, schools and chapels fl ourished in the u the mines and metal-rich spoil heaps entire history of Ceredigion mining can be traced. PHOTOS: GRZEGORZ LESNIEWSKI/NATUREPL.COM ; DR. DAVID HOLYOAK scattered across the post-industrial Beginning where a 4,000 year old copper axe head landscapes of mid-Wales. While most was found near Borth Bog, the trail continues past plants can’t survive in earth that’s laden the industrial age chimney at Cwmsymlog, the with toxic metals, there are a few hardy Bronze Age copper mine at Darren, the water wheel species that thrive. Specialised lichens can at Pontrhydygroes, and fi nishes near Strata Florida extract nutrients from the rocks, while Abbey at Pontrhydfendigaid, home of the medieval PHOTO: © ROBIN WEAVER/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO resilient grasses like sheep’s fescue mining Cistercian monks. This long-distance trail (Festuca ovina), fi nd anchorage in the ventures through valleys rich in hedgerows, sheep, spoil. Even rare ferns, such as forked waterfalls and craggy gorges, emerging occasionally spleenwort (Asplenium septentrionale), onto the uplands. The land is wild, mossy and wet, pictured top right, fl ourish in the acidic and the chuckle of underground springs and lime mortar of the old mine buildings at rushing of white water provide a musical background. PHOTO STOCK WALES/ALAMY © THE PHOTOLIBRARY PHOTO: Cwmsymlog. Look out for tiny green Too remote a region for coal to be imported into, t LET THE TRAIN p STEP BACK IN TIME tufts of lead moss too (Ditrichum the Ceredigion mines were powered by water. Now TAKE THE STRAIN Get a feel for mining life plumbicola), pictured right, which only occasional wind turbines tilt on the horizon, but in Walkers can take the Vale 200 years ago at Llywernog, grows in the silty refuse from lead mines. the 19th century, hundreds of water wheels turned of Rheidol Railway to the which was saved from and shushed, powering machinery. Devil’s Bridge circular. dereliction in 1973.

60 COUNTRY WALKING NOVEMBER 2015 NOVEMBER 2015 COUNTRY WALKING 61 BACK TO NATURE

Red kites It’s hard to believe today, but the red kite came very close to extinction in Britain. At one point just a handful of breeding pairs

PHOTO: GILES W BENNETT survived in the

remote strongholds PHOTO: © KIRK NORBURY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO of the upper Cothi and Tywi valleys in south Wales. Thanks to the efforts of conservationists, this beautiful bird has made a spectacular return to the Cambrian Mountains – and the rest of Britain. Now there are estimated to villages, but the miners were an itinerant . p WHERE RED be more than 1,000 pairs in Wales alone. Just as unemployed miners from Cornwall, Spain KITES SOAR Red kites are fast and agile birds of prey, and Italy found work in west Wales, when the price Take in Eleri Valley, distinguishable by their chestnut feathers on the western edge of lead plummeted and the industry collapsed in the of the Cambrian and the white patches on the underside of 20th century, Welsh lead miners moved to find work Mountains, and the their wings. You’ll often see their impressive in the collieries of south Wales, Russia or America. narrow gorge of aerobatic displays in the skies overhead, Despite the industry, even George found Craig y Pistyll. but despite their ferocious talons they’re remoteness in the uplands, which he described as: mostly scavengers and can be seen feeding ‘A mountainous wilderness extended on every side, at the Bwlch Nant Yr Arian visitor centre. a waste of russet-coloured hills, with here and there, a black, craggy summit.’ Now purple clouds race over the yellow grassland, and mountains turn blue and then black. Sometimes there is a silence that is wild and profound, broken by the cry of a red kite or the bubbling of water. Plan your trip The mine shafts are empty of people, but newts, GETTING THERE farm house (from £52pp/pn), or frogs and several species of bat have moved in. The A487 runs through backpacker beds in shared rooms There are no chimneys belching smoke and no Talybont to Aberystwyth, from in the country house hostel gunpowder blasts. Birch and sessile oaks cloak the where the A44 takes you inland. (£20pp/pn with breakfast). hills and filter beds clean the water that gushes into Trains from Birmingham go to the Rheidol, the Leri, the Ystwyth and the Mynach. Borth and Aberystwyth. See WHERE TO EAT The ruins of powder houses are resplendent with www.traveline.cymru Try The Miners Arms (www. plants, and common bent-grass, sea campion and minersarms.net, 01974 282238) in WHERE TO STAY Pontrhydygroes where a restored lead moss thrive in the slag heaps. Sometimes, George Borrow wrote: ‘A water wheel turns. Its home-cooked fugitive light flashes over the hills and the landscape large fire blazed in a huge grate, pies are deservedly popular. Miners is radiant in red, purple and gold. And at other times on one side of which was a settle; collected their pay from The Black the skies are heavy as lead, and the streams that plenty of culinary utensils, both Lion (www.gwestyllewdu.com, once powered the mines tumble down the hills, pewter and copper, hung around 01970 832555) in Talybont, where quick as molten silver. on the walls, and several goodly you can now savour dishes like rows of hams and sides of bacon Welsh rarebit with roasted A MINE OF WALKS were suspended from the roof.’ tomatoes (£5.40) and Moroccan Explore in the foosteps Fires still burn in the hearth of spiced Welsh lamb (£16). of workers in the hills. the George Borrow Hotel (www. thegeorgeborrowhotel.co.uk, MORE INFORMATION 01970 890230) in Ponterwyd and i For more about the project you’ll find the comfy rooms are see www.spirit-of-the-miners.org.uk now en-suite, with freeview TV, and download the walking routes DVD players and wifi. Double at www.discoverceredigion.co.uk/

PHOTO: GILES W BENNETT rooms from £65/pn with breakfast. English/what/walking/Pages/ Also on the A44, but closer to Cambrian-Mountains-Walks.aspx. Aberystwyth, is the walker-friendly For tourist information go to Plas Dolau (www.plasdolau.co.uk, www.discoverceredigion.co.uk 01970 617834), which offers full or call Ceredigion tourist info on board in en-suite bedrooms in the 01970 612125.

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