From 16th Century ‘get rich quick’ kings to 2016’s golden nuggets

Gold of unknown origin had been worked in Scotland since the Chalcolithic period (the Copper Age) with the earliest datable native gold artefacts dating from around 2,400 BC.

The earliest reference to gold-digging/ panning in Scotland is in a charter of David I, dating from the 1140s and relating to Fife, but there is no evidence of gold mining in 12th Century Scotland.

In 1424, the Scottish Parliament held at Perth granted to the Crown rights to all the gold mines in Scotland, and all silver mines in which three halfpennies of silver could be refined out of a pound lead.

Around 1511, in the reign of James

IV, gold was found in Crawford Muir (Clydesdale, Lanarkshire). Indeed, Crawford Moor quickly became, and remained, the UKS leading gold-field, with considerable activity during the 16th Century.

James V was particularly interested in gold and silver mining, and lost money hand over fist in the search for mineral wealth. Ultimately, his “get rich quick” scheme failed and gold and silver did not, as he’d planned, rescue the finances of impoverished 16th Century Scotland.

But using hired-in Mexican expertise, brought straight from the New World where the insatiable Spanish hunt for gold had been in full swing for decades, Scotland was subjected to a nationwide hunt for minerals that did yield reasonable quantities of gold and silver.

After Kinnesswood, there was a similar “gold rush” in Sutherland in 1868-69 – actually producing a reasonable amount of gold.

In Perthshire, Cononish near Tyndrum was historically known for lead mining, but gold was not discovered there until the 1980s.

A 10oz nugget from Cononish was the first commercially mined gold to be extracted in Scotland.

Mine owners Scotgold Resources released 10 limited edition 1oz gold rounds in 2016, which sold for an average of £4,557 per oz.