Do you have any ancestors who worked in the Ceredigion metal mining industry?

The Strata Florida Trust, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and the Coal Authority are embarking on an oral history project to collect the memories of those who worked in Ceredigion’s metal mines.

The trust is excited to be working with NRW and the Coal Authority on the Metal Mines Programme, funded by Welsh Government. It aims to improve the water environment for the benefit of people and wildlife by achieving cleaner rivers.

The programme has identified over 1,000 abandoned and polluted metal mines across Wales impacting our rivers, and is implementing appropriate remedial work, such as surface water and spoil management and/or mine water treatment schemes. This work may also benefit health and well-being, local economies and the wider environment and cultural heritage.

One mine assessed and earmarked for remedial work is Abbey Consols, northeast of Strata Florida near Pontrhydfendigaid. This site was possibly mined by Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages and worked extensively, though intermittently, during the 19th century for lead, silver and zinc. Part of Strata Florida Trust’s role in the Metal Mines Programme is to develop this mine as a feature of its visitor engagement and education offering, designing resources for schools and leading guided walks up to the mine.

They will also carry out an oral history project during 2025-26, gathering the stories of those who worked in Ceredigion metal mines. The census, land grants and parish records show people in the county working in mining as far back as the 17th century, and by the 1880s, Ceredigion was the fourth largest lead producer in Britain, employing as many as 10,000 people out of a population of around 70,000.

The mining industry provided jobs, more money and better living standards. Mining also brought workers in from elsewhere and miner-farmer settlements started to spring up, housing not only miners but those who undertook subsistence farming too. Landowners allowed miners to build squatter settlements, like that at Rhos Gelli Gron, in order to maintain a semi-skilled industrial workforce and a pool of farm labourers in an area where farming and mining were the mainstays of the economy.

Abbey Consols closed in 1913, and the men, women and children who worked in this and in other metal mines in Ceredigion, are no longer living. While other mines in the county are better documented and researched, comparatively little is known about this mine or the people who worked there. Therefore, Strata Florida would like to speak to the descendants of these mining-farming families to collect memories, stories, letters, diaries or photographs that have been handed down to them.

Please get in touch with them by emailing [email protected], or by calling 01974831760.

You can read more about the Metal Mines Programme on the NRW website: Metal mine water pollution - Natural Resources Wales Citizen Space - Citizen Space

To find out more about the work of the Strata Florida Trust, visit https://www.strataflorida.org.uk/