British gold is rare indeed. Unlike the vast mining industries in Nevada, China and South Africa, gold reserves in the UK are modest. Most mines have been alluvial where the precious metal has been sifted from rivers and silt rather than dug from rock. Gold has been mined in the UK since around 600 BC when the first mine was opened in Wales. One of the reasons the Romans invaded Britain was that they believed it to be rich in precious metals. More Roman gold artefacts have been found in Britain than anywhere else in Europe.

Wales

Gold has been mined in Dolaucothi Wales since prehistoric times. The pre-Christian Celtic chiefs wore fine gold torcs and armbands and became wealthy as a result of metal trading. The Romans later controlled some of the mines, developing large-scale mining operations. During the Roman occupation, British metalwork was widely circulated. Reaching their peak during the great expansion of the Celtic Church in the 8th century AD, Celtic goldsmiths produced work of unrivalled craftsmanship. Later, the Welsh princes became wealthy and powerful rulers due to rich supplies of metal ores.

The Acts of Union passed in 1536 and 1542 made mining rights the property of the English Crown and royalties of 4% are still payable to the Crown on any gold mined in Wales. Welsh gold, which is mined by hand, is found in an area stretching from Barmouth, past Dolgellau and up towards Snowdonia. Welsh gold-bearing rock lies in seams, like coal, and has been known to yield up to thirty ounces per tonne.  Gwynfynydd Gold Mine in Dolgellau opened in the 1860s and was one of the richest gold mines in Britain with a recorded output since 1884 of more than 2,000 ounces of fine gold. Gold was first worked on a serious scale at. In 1862 a small scale British gold rush was triggered by the Clogau mine, which excavated more than 165,031 tons of ore and was a key producer of gold on a serious scale

Welsh gold due to its rarity is very expensive and has a distinctive rose colour.  The Clogau and Gwynfynydd mines are the only mines to have recently produced significant quantities of gold, and it is from these two mines that gold for the Royal wedding rings, traditionally made of Welsh gold, has been obtained. In is rumoured that the queen obtain a kilogram of welsh gold many years ago to ensure sufficient remained for more royal rings

Scotland

Scottish Highlands are famous for many things: ancient mountains, sparkling lochs, whisky and wildlife. But now a new and highly lucrative attraction has been found in the Highlands - gold.

An Australian-funded mining company has made several large finds of gold, potentially worth hundreds of millions of pounds, around the small village of Tyndrum.

The company, Scotgold, already owns a small mine near Tyndrum known as Cononish. First drilled 20 years ago, Cononish has never been commercially worked, until now where it is estimated that 4.5 tonnes of gold lie buried worth £100m..

The local community trust and tourism officials are discussing plans for a gold mine visitors centre in the village, gold panning “experiences” and jewellery boutiques selling rings, brooches and necklaces of “Tyndrum gold” to passing tourists at premium prices.

Chris Sangster, the director and CEO of Scotgold, said Cononish is expected to start producing 200kg of gold a year at the mine site when full-scale mining begins in 2011 – enough to produce 30,000 wedding rings a year – and another 500kg each year by sending rocks for processing elsewhere. Cononish will also produce roughly 17 tonnes of silver.

But Sangster said Cononish may only be the start of a major gold mining operation in the area. The company has a licence to explore a 2,200 sq km area of the southern Highlands for gold and it now believes there could be up to five times as much gold in the Tyndrum area.

The one-kilometre long shaft at Cononish has remained dormant until now because of the technical difficulty and cost of extracting the particles of gold from the quartz rock, which traps it. For every 10g of gold – roughly the weight of one wedding ring – about a tonne of rock will need to be crushed.

Most Tyndrum gold will be sold on the open market. The mine’s commercial value has been transformed by the sharp surge in its price during the recession.

Northern Ireland

The UK’s largest gold mine is in County Tyrone Northern Ireland, where 14 tonnes have been discovered in shallow deposits beneath a peat bog at Cavanacaw, in the same Dalradian rock strata that runs across the northern UK to the mine at Cononish in the Scottish Highlands.

In January 2007, after modern prospecting techniques discovered recoverable gold at Cavanacaw near Omagh in Co Tyrone, the first modern gold mine came into production. “This is Ireland’s first for two millennia”, announced Galantas, the Canadian company who owns and operates it.

It announced that Galantas expected to produce 30,000 ounces of gold a year – which alone would net close to 15 million pounds. Deposits were claimed to hold 14 tonnes of Irish gold. While most was to be sold as gold concentrate, a small part of what the company billed as “rare Irish gold” was to be used to make a range of branded 18-carat jewellery – Galantas Irish gold jewellery.

In addition to the Omagh gold mine, there are at least three other projects that are being explored.

Maurice Hall

Tags: Gold, History, Mining

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Gold, Great Britain, History, Mining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.