Rhyd Fach Mine

Overview

A minor lead working in the Nant-y-Moch valley, part of the same mining landscape as the neighbouring Eaglebrook and Hafan mines, though nothing is recorded of its individual history beyond that district context.

History

Rhyd Fach Mine worked ground in the Nant-y-Moch valley of the Cambrian Mountains, an upland landscape where, alongside Bronze Age funerary monuments and scattered hill farms, the remains of metal mines are common, particularly toward its northern edge. It sits within the same small cluster of workings as the neighbouring, far better documented Eaglebrook and Hafan mines, part of a wider mid-Wales silver-lead orefield that, at its height in the 18th and 19th centuries, drew miners from well beyond the immediate district. A genuine search -- including the Historic Landscape Character Area record for Nant-y-Moch itself, the Northern Mine Research Society's Cardiganshire index, and the BGS mine-plans catalogue, which returned no result for this name -- found no operator, working dates, output or closure specific to Rhyd Fach; it survives today chiefly as a locality name attached to an adit associated with mineral specimens rather than as a mine with a recorded narrative of its own.

Geology

Lead of the Cambrian Mountains orefield in the Nant-y-Moch valley, in the same cluster of workings as Eaglebrook and Hafan.

Workings

Nothing is recorded of the mine's own workings.

Closure

No closing date is recorded for the mine itself.

What remains

The mine survives today chiefly as a locality name attached to an adit known for its mineral specimens.

Related mines

• Eaglebrook Mine — A neighbouring working in the Nant-y-Moch cluster.
• Hafan Mine — A neighbouring working in the Nant-y-Moch cluster.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Remains of metal mines are a common feature of the Nant-y-Moch landscape, particularly toward its northern edge, alongside Bronze Age funerary and ritual monuments and scattered hill farms. ¹
• Rhyd Fach lies within the mid-Wales Cambrian Mountains silver-lead orefield, a district that at its 18th- and 19th-century height drew mining labour from well beyond the immediate area. ²
• The National Museum of Wales holds gemmy colourless cerussite crystals one to two millimetres across on an iron-rich matrix from Rhyd Fach Mine (specimen NMW 76.4G.M.1); Mason in 1994 described cerussite forming well-developed crystals up to two millimetres at the western end of the adit level, its transparent microcrystals coating friable quartz veinstone from the back of the adit. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Nant-y-Moch (Heneb Historic Landscape Character Area) — Heneb (Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust)
2. (secondary) The spirit of the Cambrian Mountains metal miners — Discover Ceredigion
3. (primary) Cerussite: Rhyd Fach Mine and Rhydfach adit, Tal-y-bont (Mineralogy of Wales database, Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales) — Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales

Record created: 31 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026