The remains of an aerial ropeway, which brought ore from a point near four lodes at the upper end of Cwm Bychan, to a processing plant near Nantmor, a distance of about 1.4kms. Much of the ropeway remains, including some of the supporting pylons and even sections of the wire rope. It is possible to theoretically at least, reconstruct the machinery in some detail. At the upper end is a terminal station. This consists of iron scaffolding supporting a horizontal wheel ca 1.5m in diameter, around which the cable passed. Buckets suspended from bogies, each with a pair of wheels were held on the cable by a friction device attached to the wheel carrier. The suspended buckets arrived at the terminal station, where they were semi automatically lifted by their wheels onto a fixed iron track passing behind the horizontal wheel. Here they could be stored temporarily while being filled, after which they could be manually pushed around the iron track, before being slipped back onto the moving cable. At the lower end of Cwm Bychan, now sited just N of an embanked section of the Welsh Highland Railway, is the mill and bottom station of the ropeway. This consists of various concrete platforms that supported machinery and there are also two circular concrete lined tanks where the ore was crushed. The "ropeway" itself cable was tensioned via a pulley on a short track by a weight consisting of a metal cage filled with rocks. Much of this mechanism survives, more or less in situ. The ropeway apparatus dates from the 1920's and had a relatively short life. It was constructed to exploit the ore remaining in the spoil tips from the C19th mine works. The writer was told that the filled buckets had a tendency to hit the ground and eventually the whole enterprise was abandoned.
John Latham, RCAHMW, 15 March 2011.