304 Roman Mining Operations on the Borders of Wales. 



by the Eomans at the Clive near Grinshill, and he is of opinion 

 that the well-known grotto in Hawkstone Park, with its dark pas- 

 sage of eighty yards, was certainly formed by the Eomans in work- 

 ing for copper ore. From this spot the traces of Roman mining 

 disappear until we arrive at the hill of Llanymynech, on the 

 northern borders of Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, in an 

 isolated part of Denbighshire, a few miles from Llanrahaiadyr, 

 already mentioned. Llanymynech Hill is a mountain of lime- 

 stone of considerable extent, arising from the plain at some 

 distance in advance of the edge of the mountain district of 

 Denbighshire. Between the strata of lime occurs a very tena- 

 cious smooth clay, with orange-coloured ochre and green plu- 

 mose carbonate of copper. It was the latter which attracted 

 the Roman miners ; and the remains of their extensive works 

 are found on the north-west side of the hill, consisting of shallow 

 pits, the debris from the excavations of which are full of small 

 pieces of copper ore. In the neighbourhood of these pits are 

 found traces of vitrification which show that here the Romans 

 smelted their copper on open hearths. Their excavations, how- 

 ever, were by no means confined to the surface, for there still 

 remains a very large cavern, known popularly by the Welsh 

 name of Ogo (the cave), from which run irregular winding pas- 

 sages, connected with which are the remains of air-shafts. The 

 Ogo at Llanymynech, like so many of these monuments of 

 primeval times, is popularly believed to be inhabited by fairies 

 and similar beings ; a lad, whom I once took for my guide 

 thither, knew all about these spirits of the mine, and gave me 

 an account of one of the miners, with whom he was acquainted, 

 who, coming over the mountain rather late at night, had seen 

 the fairies dancing on the sward. But, though not very easy 

 of access at the commencement, the Roman workings in the 

 interior of Llanymynech hill have been explored more than 

 once, and are better known than those in any other locality. 

 In the latter half of the last century they were entered more 

 than once by miners in search of copper, who found a number 

 of Roman coins, some mining implements, and, it is stated, 

 culinary utensils, and several human skeletons and scattered 

 bones — one of the skeletons having a bracelet on the left arm, 

 and a " battle-axe" by his side.* Some of the mining imple- 

 ments were deposited with other antiquities in the library of 

 Shrewsbury School, but they have long disappeared. I possess 

 a drawing of one, which was a roughly made iron implement 

 resembling a pick, except that it had only one limb, and which 

 had evidently been used for pulling out the rock after it had 

 been cracked and broken. At a later period, a man well known 



* See Pennant's Tours in Wales, edit, of 1810, vol. iii. p. 218, and Nicholson's 

 Cambrian Traveller's Guide, under Llan y Mynach. 



