Pumsaint is a village in

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire (; or informally ') is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. ...

, Wales, halfway between

Llanwrda Llanwrda () is a village and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, southwest of Llandovery. It lies on the River Towy. The population in 2011 was 514. Transport and other features The village is served by Llanwrda railway station. The south ...

and

Lampeter Lampeter (; (formal); ''Llambed'' (colloquial)) is a town, community and electoral ward in Ceredigion, Wales, at the confluence of the Afon Dulas with the River Teifi. It is the third largest urban area in Ceredigion, after Aberystwyth and C ...

on the A482 in the valley of the

Afon Cothi The Afon Cothi (also known as the River Cothy) in Carmarthenshire is the largest tributary of the River Tywi in south Wales. From its source at Blaen Cothi in the north of the county, north of Pumsaint, it flows south-east and then turns south ...

. It forms part of the extensive estate of

Dolaucothi The Dolaucothi Gold Mines (; ) (), also known as the Ogofau Gold Mine, are ancient Roman surface and underground mines located in the valley of the River Cothi, near Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The gold mines are located within the ...

, which is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

The name is

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, of or about Wales * Welsh language, spoken in Wales * Welsh people, an ethnic group native to Wales Places * Welsh, Arkansas, U.S. * Welsh, Louisiana, U.S. * Welsh, Ohio, U.S. * Welsh Basin, during t ...

for "Five Saints" (''Pump'' being the word for "five"). The name is derived from the stone block at the nearby gold mines, opposite Ogofau Lodge, which has four sides, each of which has hollows probably caused by pestle impacts. It was used as an anvil for crushing gold ore in the

Roman period The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

. Excavations in the 1990s of the area adjacent to the stone showed that the stone was originally horizontal and used as an anvil for a water-powered crushing mill. There are many parallels from Spanish mines of the Roman period with similar stone anvils.

Places of interest

The nearby conservation area has several

scheduled ancient monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

s including the

Dolaucothi Gold Mines The Dolaucothi Gold Mines (; ) (), also known as the Ogofau Gold Mine, are ancient Roman surface and underground mines located in the valley of the River Cothi, near Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The gold mines are located within the ...

Archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

have uncovered evidence of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

occupation of the area, including

Roman aqueducts The Romans constructed aqueducts throughout their Republic and later Empire, to bring water from outside sources into cities and towns. Aqueduct water supplied public baths, latrines, fountains, and private households; it also supported minin ...

, numerous tanks,

cisterns A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

and reservoirs, timber buildings and a fort. There are extensive unground mines, that were in use until 1938.

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

suggests that

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

extraction on this site may have started sometime in the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, possibly by washing of the gold-bearing gravels of the

, the most elementary type of gold prospecting.

Sextus Julius Frontinus Sextus Julius Frontinus (c. 40 – 103 AD) was a Roman civil engineer, author, soldier and senator of the late 1st century AD. He was a successful general under Domitian, commanding forces in Roman Britain, and on the Rhine and Danube frontier ...

was sent into Roman Britain in 74 AD to succeed

Quintus Petillius Cerialis Quintus Petillius Cerialis Caesius Rufus ( AD 30 — after AD 83), otherwise known as Quintus Petillius Cerialis, was a Roman general and administrator who served in Britain during Boudica's rebellion and went on to participate in the civil wars ...

as governor. He subdued the

Silures The Silures ( , ) were a powerful and warlike tribe or tribal confederation of ancient Britain, occupying what is now south east Wales and perhaps some adjoining areas. They were bordered to the north by the Ordovices; to the east by the Do ...

Demetae The Demetae were a Celtic people of Iron Age and Roman period, who inhabited modern Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales. The tribe also gave their name to the medieval Kingdom of Dyfed, the modern area and county of Dyfed and ...

and other hostile tribes of

Roman Wales The Roman era in the area of modern Wales began in 48 AD, with a military invasion by the imperial governor of Roman Britain. The conquest was completed by 78 AD, and Roman rule endured until the region was abandoned in 383 AD. The Roman Emp ...

, establishing a new base at

Caerleon Caerleon ( ; ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in Newport, Wales. Situated on the River Usk, it lies northeast of Newport city centre, and southeast of Cwmbran. Caerleon is of archaeological importance, being the site of a notable ...

for Legio II Augusta and a network of smaller Roman forts 15 to 20 kilometres apart for his Roman auxiliary units. During his tenure, he probably established the fort at Pumsaint in west Wales, largely to exploit the gold deposits at Dolaucothi. Frontinus later restored the

Aqueducts of Rome The Romans constructed aqueducts throughout their Republic and later Empire, to bring water from outside sources into cities and towns. Aqueduct water supplied public baths, latrines, fountains, and private households; it also supported mini ...

. That gold occurred here is shown by the discovery of a

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

of gold ornaments in the 18th century. Objects found included a wheel brooch and snake bracelets, so named because they were soft enough to be coiled around the arm for display. All the objects are now held in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, and displayed in the Romano-British gallery. A sample of gold ore was found at the site by

Henry de la Beche Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche KCB, FRS (10 February 179613 April 1855) was an English geologist and palaeontologist, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the ...

in 1844, confirming the presence of gold. Evidence from the

fort A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...

(known as

Luentinum Luentinum or Loventium refers to the Roman fort at Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire. The site lies either side of the A482 in Pumsaint and was in use from the mid 70s AD to around 120 AD. It may have had particular functions associated with the adjacen ...

from details given by

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

) and

vicus In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (plural ) designated a village within a rural area () or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Republican era, the four of the city of Rome were subdivided into . In the 1st century BC, Augustus ...

show that the Romans worked the mine during the first and second centuries AD (from c. AD 78 until around AD 125), judging by the occupation of the fort. However coarse ware and

Samian ware Terra sigillata is a term with at least three distinct meanings: as a description of medieval medicinal earth; in archaeology, as a general term for some of the fine red ancient Roman pottery with glossy surface slips made in specific areas ...

pottery recovered from a reservoir (Melin-y-Milwyr) within the mine complex show that activity at the mines continued until the late third century at least. Since Ptolemy's map dates to about 150 AD, it is likely then that it continued being worked until the end of the third century if not beyond. The Romans made extensive use of water carried by several aqueducts and

leat A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Othe ...

s (the longest of which is about from its source in a gorge of the river) to prospect for the gold veins hidden beneath the soil on the hillsides above the modern village of Pumsaint. Small streams on

Mynydd Mallaen Mynydd Mallaen () is an expansive plateau to the northwest of Cilycwm in northeast Carmarthenshire, Wales. It forms part of the Cambrian Mountains massif, and is north-west of the Black Mountain (range) in the Brecon Beacons. It takes the fo ...

, the Annell and Gwenlais, were used initially to provide water for prospecting, and there are several large tanks for holding the water still visible above an isolated opencast pit carved in the side of the hill north of the main site. The water was used in a method known as

hushing Hushing is an ancient and historic mining method using a flood or torrent of water to reveal mineral veins. The method was applied in several ways, both in prospecting for ores, and for their exploitation. Mineral veins are often hidden bel ...

, where a wave is released to sweep soil and sub-soil away to reveal bare rock. The method was also used to remove as rock debris after a vein was attacked using tools and

fire-setting Fire-setting is a method of traditional mining used most commonly from prehistoric times up to the Middle Ages. Fires were set against a rock face to heat the stone, which was then doused with liquid, causing the stone to fracture by thermal s ...

to produce the opencast. The larger aqueduct from the Cothi crosses this opencast, proving the opencast to be earlier.

Other attractions

Other places of interest include the National trust Visitor Centre, located in the Old Coach House in the centre of the village, where displays of the local dolaucothi estate history is displayed along with information on the

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

woodlands, the traditional nesting place of the red kite, may be viewed. To the north up the Cothi valley and across the watershed into the Tywi valley lies the large dam of

Llyn Brianne Llyn Brianne is a man-made reservoir in the headwaters of the River Towy in Wales. Construction The reservoir was constructed by Wimpey Construction in the late 1960s and early 1970s in order to regulate the flow in the Towy to support larg ...

and the wilderness beyond is good pony trekking country. The area is a popular place for

caravan Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Campervan, a type of vehicle also known as a motor caravan *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Caravan (trail ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

and riding holidays.

References

External links

Carreg Pumsaint – once thought to be a 'standing stone' now thought to be an anvil for crushing gold orewww.geograph.co.uk : photos of Pumsaint and surrounding area
{{coord, 52, 02, 50, N, 3, 57, 39, W, type:city_region:GB, display=title Villages in Carmarthenshire

Places of interest

Other attractions

References

See also

External links