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cunningcorgi Senior Member Posts : 71 Location : Status : Offline |
North Wales Slate Mine, Gwynedd, March 2012 Visited with walshHISTORY The first slate quarrying here was from open pits before 1840. Quarrying for slate slabs continued underground with several headings but there was never a high extraction rate despite a standard gauge connection. The quarry eventually closed but was reopened and re-equipped in 1872 and for a short period a workforce of over 100 produced an annual extraction of 100 tons per annum. A new larger mill with 40 machines was built on the valley floor. By 1894 the workforce had been reduced to 20 with 550 tons of slate being produced. Production continued to decline until the quarry closed in 1925, by this time there were only 3 saws and 2 planers. Tramways throughout the quarry were an unusual gauge of 2ft 4 1/4in; today much of the tramway still remains in place both on the surface and underground. On the opposite side of the pit is the adit into the underground workings with random headings and chambers; all workings below adit level are now flooded. It is possible to climb out through an air shaft of one of the chambers. Some plant still remains in place including several winches, climbing chains and a boiler. THE VISIT A long walk up a mountain by the old incline on a lovely morning. On reaching the top, we discover a path up through the adjacent forest ! Ho hum. While the day was great outside, inside was very misty which made taking photographs difficult to say the least due to the vast size of the place and the lights picking up every bit of mist ! 1. The fully lined and slate 'bricked' drainage adit through which you must go to access the main adit. 
2. View in the misty main adit. A truck for transporting slate waste stands half submerged in the trapped water. 
3. Further on in the main adit before the worked out chambers are reached. 
4. A pile of deads stacked off the first chamber. 
5. Bored adits between the chambers for the tramways are plentiful. 
6. The obligatory drill mark. 
7. A winch still in place in one of the chambers. 
8. Winch chain still in situ on a chamber wall. 
9. Remains of another winch in another chamber. 
10. Climbing chain to upper adit. 
11. Winch pulley waiting to be used again some day. 
12. An interesting design on the chamber ceiling made by a boring machine. 
13. Equipment remains in the vast chamber. 
14. Entrances to two chambers. 
15. Climbing chain to the upper level. Distance from camera to light at the top (and lenght of chain), approx 90 feet. 
16. Titanic moment. Back in the main chamber, remains of a wooden crane sticks out of the flooded chamber. 
17. Another view of the wooden crane. 
18. The old vertical coal boiler in the main chamber. 
19. Sections of soot lined ceramic pipes that took the boiler's smoke to the surface through an adjoining chamber, breaking out to daylight further up the hillside. 
20. A short climb up to an upper balcony. 
21. The abandoned truck on the way out. 
22. The last leg, out through the drainage adit. 
23. Main flooded chamber. The mist in here (and in all the chambers) made it impossible to get good photographs but included for scale. The 12 foot boiler is on the bottom right, the sunken wooden crane on the bottom left. 
Thanks for looking and any comments / advice most welcome ! ---------------------- |
 Sat 24 Mar 2012 @ 16:02
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ratty Admin Posts : 96 Location : Pontypridd Status : Offline |
Lovely shots, well up to your usual standard. Where is this? Gwynedd is a large area. ---------------------- |
Sun 25 Mar 2012 @ 13:24
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