The adventurers: Derbyshire miners in Minera

A little while ago I wrote about the farm of Gwernygaseg, on the border of Brymbo and Minera townships, and about the old family of Welsh freeholders called Hughes who owned it back in the 17th century and earlier.

In common with most people in this period, the Hughes family have left few traces in the record. Nevertheless in my previous post I quoted a valuable fragment of memoir written by John Denman, the rector of Llandegla. This concerned his “respectable” great-grandfather Mr “Hughes of Gwern-y-caseg” and his grandfather, a Derbyshire man who came to Minera as an “adventurer” to try his hand at lead mining, winning the hand of Mr Hughes’ daughter in the process. Not bad going for an Englishman.