Sinkhole opens up on old lead mines site - should we be surprised?
A sound like thunder . . . and then a 30-ft wide sinkhole opens up near a Towy Valley home! Surprising? Perhaps not to anyone familiar with the area around Towy View Park, off Capel Dewi Road, just outside Carmarthen. After all, didn’t our parents and teachers in Llangunnor always warn us when we were children – ‘Don’t go near the lead mines’ . I am sure there are a whole host of us Llangunnor ‘50-somethings’ who heard the stern warning – and heeded it, fearing being swallowed up by old mine workings. The only surprises to most of us down the years have been – Why would anyone want to build on the site? And . . . Why did the homes get planning permission? The ‘folklore’ story we were given as youngsters revolved around the mines dating back to Roman times. Historians will, I am sure, tell it different. By all accounts, the lead mines just off the B4300 Capel Dewi Road were worked in the 18th century. In 1852 Thomas Field formed the Vale of Towy Silver-Lead Mining Company...