17830

 

II  

Designated  

30/05/1996  

30/05/1996  

Chimney  

 

Conwy  

Betws-y-Coed  

 

Llanrwst Lead Mine  

277963  

359344  

 

Located at the northern boundary of the community council area, 150m N of Llyn Sarnau; sited to the E of an unclassified road leading SW from the Gwydir forest to join with the A5 at the Pont Ty-hyll.  

Industrial  

 

 

History: The Llanrwst Lead Mine was established in 1876-7 as one of a series of such mines to exploit the rich lead deposits of the Gwydir Forest; earlier workings on the site, recorded already in the C18, had gone by the name of the Bwlch-yr-Haiarn mine. The working life of the Llanrwst mine was relatively shortlived, mining in the area ceasing around the beginning of the Great War; of the mine buildings, all save the chimney are now in ruins. The chimney was built to provide a through-draught for the boiler-house fire, and is sited in its NW corner; the ruined engine house is adjacent. This itself originally housed a 25" cylinder horizontal condensing engine, built by the Sandycroft Foundry Co., Deeside. Description: Cylindrical chimney, 18m high, with a noticeable lean to the W; on a rubble plinth in the NW corner of the former boiler-house. The lower two-thirds are of rubble construction, the upper section of red brick; oversailing courses to corniced top. Small brick-arched vent to the W side at ground level. An imposing chimney testifying to the formerly important lead mining industry in the Gwydir Forest, and exceptional in this context within North Wales in its surviving juxtaposition with the boiler-house and engine room. Reference: J. Bennett and R. W. Vernon, Mines of the Gwydir Forest: Part 1, Llanrwst mine and its neighbours, 1989, 12-30.