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Bulmer Moss Mine

Long Cleugh, W of Elvanfoot, E of Wellgrain Dod, Lanarkshire.

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.

Alternative Names: Crawford Moor Mine

Notes: 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.

There were few commercial attempts to work the gold after Bulmer's day. However, the working for gold became a pastime of the lead miners particularly from the 1860s onwards. In 1862, over two weeks, miners collected 975 grains for the Countess of Hopetoun. During the strike of 1921, miners again worked for gold; the most successful being John Weir and John Blackwood. Today, enthusiasts pan for gold. Licenses are obtained from the Estate. [Leadhills Estate]

In the same neighbourhood gold is to be found over a district measuring about 25 by 12 miles. The gold mines of Crawford Muir are said to have been discovered in the reign of James IV., and in the time of James V. they were of considerable value, and were carried on for the benefit of the Crown. The celebrated ` bonnet pieces ' of James V. were made from this gold; and at the festival given in honour of the King's marriage with Magdalen of France, it is said that cups filled with it were set on the table. In 1542, 35 ounces of it were used in the manufacture of a crown for the Queen, and 46 ounces in the manufacture of that for the King; while, according to a MS. in the Cottonian Collection, the annual value of the workings at the same time amounted to a sum equivalent to £100, 000 sterling. After that it fell off very rapidly, and now the quantity found is so small that it hardly repays the time spent by some of the miners of the neighbourhood in searching for it during leisure hours.