Scottish Gold
“There’s gold in them there hills.”
And there is. Despite concerns that it will disturb the spectacular beauty of Loch Lomond National Park, a company has just been granted approval to develop a gold mine in Glen Cononish near Tyndrum.
It has been more than 500 years since gold was commercially mined in Scotland but there are places where people still try their hand at panning in the rivers for a few tiny nuggets. Modern mining techniques involve excavating many tons to extract small quantities of gold. The recent global price of gold makes the prospect potentially commercially viable again.
Much further south than Tyndrum, the villages of Leadhills in South Lanarkshire and Wanlockhead in Dumfries and Galloway have been known since Roman times to be rich in mineral deposits including (according to Wikipedia) lanarkite, leadhillite, caledonite, susannite, plattnerite, scotlandite, macphersonite, chenite and mattheddleite. More familiar sounding lead, zinc, copper and silver were mined nearby, as well as some of the world’s purest gold, at 22.8 carats, which was used to make the Scottish Crown.
The main product of the mines over centuries was lead and production stopped as recently as the 1950s.
On a visit to these villages the marks of an old industrial landscape of slag heaps, bings and gouges from the mine workings are all around. There is a fascinating museum about the history of the area, including the mining and you can try a “gold panning” exhibit. It is possible to take a trip on a narrow gauge railway once used in the mining industry. It is very hilly so can be good exercise too.
On open view other old artefacts are visible including rail tracks with wagons and a beam engine that once pumped water from the mines.
Wanlockhead has the second oldest subscription library in Europe which is also possible to visit.
Despite being in different “shires”, these two villages are only a few miles apart and make an interesting and educational trip.
The official Hidden Treasures website has details of features and opening times.
These photographs were taken in April 2004 using a Fujifilm S2 DSLR. Shot in RAW format and processed in Photoshop CS2 ACR2.4
All the photographs were taken by Scottish photographer Norman Young and are copyright ©. Please respect copyright.
