Parys Underground Group / Grwp Tanddaearol Parys
General
History
Processes
Photographs
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Surface features and buildings
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| The viewing platform was built by Amlwch Industrial Heritage Trust to allow visitors to gain a better view of the Great Open Cast. | The platform allows the visitor to see clearly down into the bottom of the Great Opencast. The lake visible in this picture has now been drained along with most of the rest of the water within the old mine workings. |
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The shallow dip and pink colour show the remains of a calcining pit on the mountain. This is an area which was used to remove Sulphur from the crude ore prior to smelting. |
One of the precipitation pits in the Mona Mine. Water from the mine was pumped into these pits. Scrap iron was added. A reaction between the scrap iron and the copper solution from the mountain resulted in the precipitation of copper as a fine dust in the bottom of the pit. This fine material was raked up and dried before being sent to the smelters at Amlwch port for further processing. |
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The ruined buildings in the distance are the
remains of the Mona Mine yard. The assay office ,counting office, blacksmith
and general offices for the management of the Mona mine where all located
here. The buildings were described by Owen Griffiths in 1897 "The administrative hub of the two mining companies were the two yards. There was nothing much to distinguish one from the other, although the Mona Mine yard was somewhat larger than that at the Parys Mine. Today they are both in ruins, but at one time they were both the centres of great activity. An area in land, about an acre in size, and enclosed walls some nine to ten feet in height, situated on the south-eastern side of the mountain housed the extensive offices of the Mona Mine Company. Within the walls was an assortment of buildings The smithy, a lime-house, the bier house, a bell tower, wagon shed, an oil store and an amazing accumulation of rope of various kinds and other equipment: steel, iron, copper wire, together with stores of grease, pitch, tar and paint etc. Above these were extensive store rooms in which kept mats made from sea-sedge, bedrooms, all sorts and sizes of sieves; copper iron and lead pipes. smiths' bellows, leather, India rubber, solder, sheet lead, copper and iron nails, metal polish, bath bricks, various coloured blankets and cloth for the miners, hard hats for the stewards, and a vast number of old books. Yet another storehouse was used to store gunpowder, fuse caps, candles, and brown paper: there was a sawpit and carpenters' shop, an assay office, stables and a turnery shed. In the corner of the yard lay a stack of timber for use in the mines Between the sampling house and the offices stood a large pulpit with a top to it, resembling for all the world an old-fashioned wainscot bed .... It was placed by the office window in the upper part of the Mona Yard, and this pulpit, too like the one at Parys Mine has a strange tale to tell. Once a month (or in earlier times, once every two or three months) the company manager and its chief clerk would mount upon this pulpit; in front of them were two massive volumes and a small wooden box some eight inches square containing a fistful or two of small pebbles. When 1 recall some of the incidents associated with the setting of the 'bargains', I am amazed that a company of life guards was not required to stand at door of the pulpit. Of the two volumes on the pulpit, one was for those who wished to bargain to mine copper at so much a ton, the other recorded the names of those ready to dig out the levels or tunnels at so much a fathom. The pebbles in the wooden box were flipped over the heads to the assembled workers to signify that the two parties, the 'tributers' and the 'tutworkmen' were agreed on the bargain for the following month. |
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The Pearl Engine house stands partially restored at the mid point of the trail. It's chimney was destroyed in a storm a few years ago. The engine house contained a steam driven pump which pumped water from the nearby Pearl shaft. These pumps, operated by the water wheel ,raise the water to a reservoir behind the pearl engine house. After feeding the boiler in the engine house the engine pumped more fresh water from the reservoir to another boiler situated at the Cairns boiler house on the top of the mountain. The total lift from the water wheel to the Cairns engine house is about 200 feet. |
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The Summit Windmill was built in 1878, in the hope of reducing pumping costs for the deepening mine shafts. The windmill was unique in Anglesey in having five sails. In later years it was connected by a system of flat rods to a steam engine at the head of the 270 foot Cairns shaft. |
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underground@parysmountain.co.uk
All original material
Copyright © Neil Summers (2006)
all rights reserved.
The copy right of others is also acknowledged