To get to this next cache you will be walking past Dolgoed. Pay attention to the public footpath signs as you do not follow the track directly in front of the house. Instead bear left, following the fence line. Go through a small black metal gate and down a steep muddy path. Cross over the large stream.
Dolgoed itself predates the mine activity, possibly being the oldest house in Talyllyn Parish. This farmhouse has possible links to the Quakers, and may be home to a Friend's Burial Ground. The Quakers have a long tradition wit hthis area of Wales, and the first yearly meeting of the Quakers was held in Dolgallau in 1683. To find out more about the Quakers there is a geocahce circuit based in Dolgellau that follows the Quaker Trail.
The earliest records of people living at Dolgoed is 1640, but there may well have been a farm here long before that time. The same family have owned the property throughout its history.
In more reccent times the farm was used by Abingdon School in Oxfordshire. From 1968 to 1974 the school used the building as a residential base for field study and outward bound work. The pupils of this pretigous public school no doubt has a shock when arriving in this remote Welsh valley, on their first visit flooding had left the ground floor under an inch of water, but most accounts from the school maagzine talk very positively about the time spent in this valley. A change of headmaster led to a change of direction, and the visits stopped.
In front of this cache is a further farmhouse called Ceiswyn. This site dates back to the 1500's. One of the previous occupants was Sir John Lloyd. He was a companion to Sir Lewis Owain, the local judge who was killed at the Red Bandits of Mallwyd (explore more about their story in the Bandit Country cache series)
To get back to the carparking either retrace your footsteps, or you can carry on along this side of the river, head along the track through the fields and in to the forestry. Keep going along that track and the cache series continues. As you walk keep an eye on the other side of the valley (much easier now the trees have been felled). You'll be able to see spoiltips and addits. The adits are the horizontal tunnels to access the mines hidden in the hillsides. Why so far above the valley floor? Wales is very wet, keeping the entrances this high up reduces flooding, and the adits also had to be located to follow the narrow vein slate seam with minimal digging and excavation.