Can anybody who was on the mid Wales weekend just gone remember what Roy said the mine we visited after Henfwlch was called? Davel said it was likely to have been Bryn y Arf, and he knows the area very well, but I don't want to add the entry just yet because I may not have described very well where it was.

🔗Personal-Album-1-Image-35080[linkphoto]Personal-Album-1-Image-35080[/linkphoto][/link]

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... Davel said it was likely to have been Bryn y Arf, and he knows the area very well

Me ... I know nothing. I think that's where Roy was planning to go but I've never been to Bryn y Afr [note spelling], only Henfwlch and Esgair Hir in that area, so I can't confirm. I suggest you wait for a definitive response from Roy.

Bick (The Old Metal Mines of Mid-Wales part 3 p. 52) refers to it as Brynyafr and gives its location as SN746879.

Considering the dead sheep business it sounds as if I did the right thing avoiding that part of the tour!

Dave

Bryn yr Afr Mine is the sheepy one yes.

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If it's the one right at the edge of Nantymoch Reservoir, and half underwater, then it's Brynyrafr

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Thanks everybody. I'll add it to the database now.

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Roy just come in on this, sorry late due to an emergency (ran out of XXXX)

That was indeed the mine, and as commented, please note the spelling.

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Just seen your pictures Simon.
YES!!
There are some explorers out there that would have crawled through the dead sheep never mind stepped over them to visit a place like that.

EDIT
So when do I get to see the pics of Alltycrib?

Further edit
Just seen them, excellent pictures Simon. I have to admit to being quite thrilled, what a good weekend!

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It was already listed as Bryn-yr-Afr. We now have a duplicate entry (with the wrong grid reference - it's in SN, not SH).

It was already listed as Bryn-yr-Afr. We now have a duplicate entry (with the wrong grid reference - it's in SN, not SH).

Though strangely the wrong one is still next to a place called Tal-y-Bont.

Tal-y-bont is the only Talybont that is correctly spelled Tal-y-bont, as I understand it.
Anyway, we need to clean up the Brynyrafr business.

My suggestion is to move everything over to the original, and put in a note on the new version. Unless a student of the Welsh language can correct me, I understand that both are legitimate spellings.
Its food for thought in other directions, such as dumping the “Wheals” on Cornish mines.
I think a discussion thread should be started on this, as it’s an issue that is bound to reoccur.

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I don't suppose that you have a plan of this mine you could upload do you Roy? Would be interested to see how much of it was actually covered by the reservoir.

why dump the 'Wheal' in the names of Cornish mines? Many of them were so called when they were working ( cf 'Wheal Jane' which was always so called, 'Wheal Pendarves' sometimes; 'Wheal Geevor' was sometimes used, though not always - whereas S Crofty and Mount Wellington were not

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I don't suppose that you have a plan of this mine you could upload do you Roy? Would be interested to see how much of it was actually covered by the reservoir.

Yes I do but it is courtesy of my friend Simon H whos permission I will have to ask before I upload it. I mabe see him this weekend as my Cornwall trip has been put off until later in June.

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As usual I see these threads too late....
I always thought of the mine as spelt without the hyphens, but when I was uploading photos, this was the only entry in the database. Anyway there are archive pictures (in Bick and other places) showing the site before flooding, which show a fine waterwheel in situ. Where did it go? (Ponterwyd?). This site used to be a magnet for geology clubs and collectors because of the 'pretty' sulphide ores all over the dumps, when I was last there it looked picked clean. Bizarrely it's in the top 50 metal mines identified by the EA as needing attention for it's environmental impact (with Henfwlch, I wonder if the pile of rechargeable batteries that were dumped down the air shaft skewed the water quality results at the adit discharge)

why dump the 'Wheal' in the names of Cornish mines? Many of them were so called when they were working ( cf 'Wheal Jane' which was always so called, 'Wheal Pendarves' sometimes; 'Wheal Geevor' was sometimes used, though not always - whereas S Crofty and Mount Wellington were not

One of my professional skills is the design and development of commercial databases in Microsoft Access and Visual Basic. Any index of the names of individuals follows a convention such as Surname, Comma, FirstName, Title otherwise everyone would be grouped together under Mr, Mrs, Miss, or Ms.

My opinion is that a similar logical naming convention should be followed with the names of mines within a database; otherwise most of the Cornish mines inevitably become all grouped together under “W” with the attendant certainty that some will be added twice. The latter also of course applies to alternative spellings.

What is certain is that within the aditnow database issues will continually arise in a similar fashion to Brynyrafr were there are alternative spellings. I think that if certain changes or practices are to be put into place we need to consider the whole matter and get the job right now. I was going to start a new thread on this, so that we can exchange ideas and opinions before anything is put into place.

One idea that occurred to me is a means of cross referencing one with another. I have developed an index database relative to a mining project which I do not feel germane to describing at this point in time. In this database I have a data field “Prefix” which holds the title “Wheal” if and where applicable. The mine name omits this so as to enable alphabetical sort order in a logical manner with streamlined search and retrieval. There is also a cross index system as my index included mining companies that worked several mines as well as mines themselves that sometimes were worked under different names.

A standard practice of mine is to reserve the first primary entities for a special purpose, these are given the #1 internal index. Example Customer ID 1 is “Cash Sale”, in the same way as in my mines database Mine ID #1 is “Indeterminate or ambiguous entry” so if there was a “Wheal Fellows” for which an entry was required, but no knowledge or indication of where it is or anything about it, I would cross reference it to #1 so as to indicate as above.

In the same way Alltycrib Mine is cross referenced to Talybont Mine being one and same but worked under different names.

Simon may want to transfer this posting to a new thread as well as come in with some ideas of his own, feel free good friend.

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I can understand your point, but I don't see why this should be felt to be a problem.

there are a number of Cornish mines historically and customarily known by the name 'Wheal' - eg Wheal Jane, Wheal Owles - which should be so listed; there are ones sometimes known by this name but usually not - Wheal Geevor - which should be listed by their name; and there are ones not so called - Mount Wellington, Great Work, Devon Great Consols - which should be so called.

I'd guess that a high proportion of Welsh mines would end up under 'T' or 'P', and so what?

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After a very quick look, some examples of the mess we have:

Wheal Owles in twice, one as mixed, one as tin, both under “Wheal”
Wheal Sisters is in twice, once under the “Wheal” and also as “Sisters Mining Co” were in my opinion it should be “Wheal Sisters Mining Company”, in my order of things I do use the word “Wheal” where it forms part of the name of a company, this is logical.

Wheal Gorland, St Day is in twice, both as a “Wheal” and as just “Gorland”. I readily admit that a lot of this is due to the submission of a database of mines by Roy M and me which omitted the “Wheal” and held this as a prefix data field.

Then of course we have the inevitable confusion caused by different mines with the same name, take Wheal Friendship, I have instances in my database of this name at Tavistock, Gwennap, St Hilary, St Neot, and Peranzabuloe

I seriously think that the whole matter should be a forum for discussion, with majority opinion forming a new policy of how mine information is to be held in the database. I think the worst scenario would be for different regional editors to be applying different policies.

What does everyone else think?

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As a further thought I thnk that a mining company has a legitimate place on the database even if they worked several mines or a whole country such as "Mining Company of Ireland", or maybe no mines at all, just dealt in shares.
People may well have company papers or correspondence to upload.
This appears to already being done, just making the point.

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it might as well be a consensus issue, because no-one outside this forum and its related ME pages cares anyway 🙂

half these names are more a matter of opinion than fact anyway, witness the various uses of 'Pendarves', 'Wheal Pendarves' and 'Pendarves Mine' when it was working. Same for Geevor, although I would say that 'Geevor' was the generally accepted form; but 'Wheal Geevor' was also used at times, both then and since.

classing duplicate mine names as 'Wheal X ( Tavistock )' sounds as good an approach as any other, it's informative and easy to understand.



same goes for Welsh spellings, my experience of these is that they vary considerably, often having an 'Anglicised' and 'Welsh' alternative form ( disregarding ones like Ynnysgynwraidd / Skenfrith which bear no visible resemblance to the English-speaking reader ) as well as varying local forms because less than 20% of Welsh speak the lingo anyway, and among those, it varies from N to S, plus the differing forms taught in school.



there are people who are interested in the whole field of mining share issues and related documentation, and applying the principle that decisions of that sort are best left with those who are interested in the outcome, they might as well be left to edit that part of the database. It certainly should be included in some shape or form.



I would, however, be opposed to those who would seek to pursue their own agenda and apply 'Cornish' names to mines which would never have been so called when they were current. The main flowering of the Cornish mining industry post-dates the time when Cornish was a common spoken language, the 'cousin Jacks' of the late 18th and 19th centuries would have spoken English and any official documentation would have been in that language.

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I've been watching this thread with some interest.

I understand the concern regarding the naming of mines on this site that has resulted in duplicate entries which poses a headache for those who have to maintain the database and do a great job by the way :thumbsup:

However, much of the confusion, especially with regard to the Cornish mines, has been caused by incorrect naming that has been going on since the last century and even before that, with Wheal dropped as a prefix and Cornish language names Anglicised. The corruption of place-names is exemplified by the renaming of the Stannary of Foweymore as Bodmin Moor.

I am very much in favour of retaining the original Cornish and Welsh mine names. I agree that it is difficult to decide what the original name of many mines might be when OS and other documentary sources offer conflicting nomenclature. Here, perhaps mining historians familiar with mines in their area could be mustered to advise on the most suitable names and spellings?

I would not wish to see the prefix Wheal dropped from Cornish mines and would welcome a solution that keeps the Aditnow database tidy and queries on mine sites simple.

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