Mining in Roman Britain
Britain was rich in resources such as copper, gold, iron, lead, salt, silver, and tin, materials in high demand in the Roman Empire.
They were able to use advanced technology to find, develop and extract valuable minerals on a scale unequaled until the Middle Ages.
Tin mining in Britain has prehistoric roots, extraction and the alloying with copper being dated to c. 2000 BC.
[5] It was used for piping for aqueducts and plumbing, pewter, coffins, and gutters for villas, as well as a source of the silver that sometimes occurred in the same mineral deposits.
The largest Roman lead mines were located in or near the Rio Tinto (river) in southern Hispania.
In A.D. 49, six years after the invasion and conquest of Britain, the Romans had the lead mines of Mendip and those of Derbyshire, Shropshire, Yorkshire and Wales running at full shift.
The Spanish soon lodged a complaint with the Emperor Vespasian, who in turn put limits on the amount of lead being produced in Britain.
[9] Details on Roman lead smelting have not been published even though open hearths were found in the Mendips by Rahtz and Boon.
[9] The Roman economy was based on silver, as the majority of higher value coins were minted from the precious metal.
Copper alloy was mostly utilized in Roman Britain to make brooches, spoons, coins, statuettes and other things needed for armour.
[11] It was rarely used in it purest form; thus, it always contained other elements such as tin, zinc or lead, which added various properties to the alloy.
Long drainage adits were dug into one of the hills at Dolaucothi, after opencast mining methods were no longer effective.
Once the ore was removed, it would be crushed by heavy hammers, probably automated by a water wheel until reduced to a fine dust.
The index to the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain lists 33 iron mines: 67% of these are in the Weald and 15% in the Forest of Dean.
The slag was taped out and disposed in very large quantities, allowing easy identification of the sites by archeologists, and sometimes used as road construction material.
[13] Roman iron was thought to hold more value than other metals due to the tedious production through direct or bloomery smelting.
[14] A recovered Vindolanda tablet documents the purchase of 90 Roman pounds of iron for 32 denarii by a man named Ascanius.
This is demonstrated by archaeological evidence from sites as far apart as Bath, Somerset (the temple of Sulis and household hypocausts), military encampments along Hadrian's wall (where outcrop coal was worked near the outlying fortlet at Moresby), forts of the Antonine Wall, Carmel lead mines in north Wales and tile kilns at Holt, Clwyd.
Excavations at the inland port of Heronbridge on the River Dee show that there was an established distribution network in place.
Coal from the East Midlands coalfields was carried along the Car Dyke for use in forges to the north of Duroliponte (Cambridge) and for drying grain from this rich cereal-growing region.
Every attempt was made to ventilate the deep mines, by driving many long adits for example, so as to ensure adequate air circulation.
[21] The production and availability of smelted metal started to cease during the late fourth century as the Romano-British economy began to decline.
[21] By the end of fourth century Britain was unable to sustain the need for metals, and so many metal-working sites were abandoned and skilled workers were left with no jobs.
