Gold Mine, possibly without any underground workings, gold being found in scours or scrapes along the banks of streams and rivers.
Gold was worked in the Leadhills area during the 16th cent.
In the 16th Century Leadhills, then known as Crawford Muir, became important for the mining of gold. Mounds of debris or ‘gowd scaurs’ along the valleys of the Shortcleuch and Glengonnar waters testify to large scale working of the alluvial gravels during the reigns of James IV and V. Between 1538 and 1542, gold was obtained for the Scottish Regalia.
About 1576, Thomas Foulis brought the minerals expert Bevis Bulmer, a Yorkshireman, to work his lead mine. Bulmer soon turned his attention to gold and continued the workings between 1578 and 1592. He made a search for the quartz veins from which the alluvial gold was thought to derive. Part of the estate is still called Bulmer Moss.
External Links
Publications (4)
- Cochran-Patrick, R.W. (1878); Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland; Vol XXV
- Dudgeon, Patrick (1876); Mineralogical Magazine - Crawford Moor-Historical notes of gold occerence in South Scotland; 8 pages
- Landless, Jeremy G. (2014); Gazetteer of Metal Mines in Scotland, A; pp. 17
- Pickin, John (2004); PDMHS (Peak District Mines Historical Society) 15-4&5 - Streaming and Hushing for Scottish Gold - The Archaeology of Early Gold Working; 4 pages (83-86)
