Welcome in the hillside Welsh goldmine offers rich seam of hope again

The workspace would not suit everyone. A soggy, gritty, cramped cavern 50 metres beneath a Welsh hillside accessible only by a series of ladders through craggy holes into the darkness.

- Steven Morris

But a smile spread over Dai Walker's grime-caked face as the miner described the challenge of hunting for gold in the hills of north-west Wales and the joy when he and his colleagues find a few specks.

"It's hard work, it's not a place for the weak," he said.

"But when you see a bit of gold, it's special. It makes you keep going back. I love the history; I like thinking about all the miners that have been here. There's hardly a family around here that doesn't have a connection with the mine."

This is a big moment in the history of the Clogau St David's mine near Dolgellau in Gwynedd. Clogau used to be the UK's richest goldmine, with members of the British royal family using the precious metal from the hills of Eryri (Snowdonia) in wedding bands for more than a century.