A look at the South Snowdon Slate Quarry. I first staggered up the Watkin path on a school field trip in the late 'sixties. We'd been listening to the latest Dylan album on the coach, the one with him and Suze Rotolo on the cover..."Freewheeling Bob Dylan". The wonders of new fangled portable tape recorders, eh? There were clouds on our horizon when it became known that Mr Metcalfe, the Geography master, expected us to climb halfway to the summit of Snowdon to see some Moraines. We were young and creative- we could imagine them, couldn't we? But Metcalfe was not someone to parry with, having a slightly menacing persona reminiscent of Lee Marvin, so we grudgingly assented. There was much talk from our mentor about glaciation and drumlins, when I spotted the lofty Cwm y Llan incline towering above- and asked what it was. The lads weren't interested and larked about, but something had got hold of me- and as Metcalfe explained the tramway and incline system, the seeds of an unhealthy life-obsession with quarries and mines were sown. The rest of that day was spent gazing in wonder at the remains of the tramway and mines of Cwm y Llan, to the other boys amusement. It took me a little while to live that one down, but the Dylan album belonged to me, so my (semi)-cool status didn't take too much of a dent... Fast forward a lot of years. It's January, and Petra and I are walking up the Watkin Path, dodging out of the way of walkers, hell bent on summit glory. They wish us hearty "Good Mornings" as they yomp past carrying the human equivalent of HGV loads in their rucksacks. We're only planning on looking at a couple of mines on the lower slopes, yet even here, there is enough stuff to require at least two more visits. I find myself humming the old Dylan number, to Petra's mystification, so I explain. Mildly exasperated, she mutters "You and your Dylan..." A little unfair, I think, as I reckon I have wide musical tastes- I like the Beatles, too - and they were once called the "Quarrymen", weren't they? The Incline comes into sight almost immediately on our walk. It bridges the Watkin Path near to the farm buildings at Hafod y Llan. These buildings once housed the horses which were used to take slate to Porthmadog. You don't get much of an idea from here how impressive the incline is going to be until you climb up on to the first plateau above Nant Gwynant. And there it is, a crazy, roller coaster ride - goodness knows how difficult to control this must have been when operational. The late Gwynfor Pierce Jones, doyen of Welsh Slate experts, calls the tramway and incline "heroic" and I wouldn't dream of arguing with that. The infrastructure does seem rather optimistic for a slate quarry on the slopes of Snowdon, a good way off the beaten track. There were, however, a number of metal mines which had hoped to share the facilities...there was also the hope that a railway would be built to take produce to Porthmadog from the foot of the incline. That didn't happen, sadly, but what a tourist draw it would have been had it been built and survived until today! We climbed up the Watkin path over the threshold of the cwm, passing a couple of interesting metal mines which I will document in another post. For a while, the going was easy and we came to the ruins of an imposing residence. I wondered if it had been a hotel, but it was actually the quarry manager's house- with many rooms and fireplaces. A stable was set a little distance away from the house. The manager whose tenure is the best documented is a chap called Alan Searell, who also looked after the metal mines locally. He would need the horses. A curious feature of the house are the many bullet holes in the walls- not a siege by a rival mine, but from the army practising during WW2! As we walked along the Watkin Path, we were aware of the tramway running along the other side of the cwm from the incline head. I resolved that we would walk back along it if we could, it was so well constructed with stone embankments and cuttings...I started to imagine a small narrow gauge line with a Hunslet locomotive and train of wagons chuffing along. A sudden squall of rain interrupted my dream and we stopped to don waterproofs by the Gladstone Rock. Soon we arrived at the quarry, where the Watkin path continues uphill to the summit. I didn't fancy that- Snowdon had been hidden in cloud all day. I climbed it once, anyway, in the eighties. It was very snowy, as I remember. There is no doubt that many a wild weather system rolls out from these cwms surrounding Yr Wyddfa, and from Mr Searell's account of life at the quarry, life was one struggle after another against the elements. According to his journals, the mill roofs blew off, dams burst and, on one occasion, the blacksmith's anvil and the roof of the forge were blown away by what he calls "big weather" ! We explored the levels of the quarry - there were several adits, all flooded and most run in, leading to the pit. There had obviously been a network of tramways; remains of the trackbeds were everywhere. Here in the top level, there was a bridge taking a tramway run to a weigh house, crossing another line out of the pit. A shaft has been sunk in the foreground to connect with an adit to transport rock down to the mill. There was a well constructed weigh house at the top level, a porch had been made from slate slab. It must still have been a chilly place to work! I don't know whether it was the wild weather we had on the day we visited, but the incline, tramway and mine workings strike us as some kind of quixotic feat, misguided and perilous. Yet, there are still the remains, noble and striking in their compass of nature and engineering. The works are for the most part drystone and engineered so well that much still stands, despite being situated at such a height and in a place known for it's wild weather. I'm delighted to re-acquaint myself with the place. I'm going to pause here, let you digest this and consider the tramway from the mine in another installment. I will also include some facts about the quarry. I still listen to Dylan. And I owe old Metcalfe a great deal, as he encouraged me and gave me some very hard kicks up the butt as and when required to get me back on the rails. I never thanked him, even though I appreciated his gimlet eye on my school career. He's probably scratching away on that blackboard in the sky now, but for what it's worth, thanks Mr M. He'd probably smile and say "Don't think twice, it's alright"...
6 Comments
18/9/2017 12:34:02 pm
Many thanks for this invaluable guide to the South Snowdon slate quarry.
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Iain Robinson
18/9/2017 08:48:49 pm
Glad my writings were of use! Good luck with the video :-)
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Caley thistle
29/12/2017 06:24:03 pm
I’d totally forgotten about these ruins on the Watkin path, it’s probably 15 Year’s or more since we’ve been up there, but you’ve just jogged my memory, so somewhere else on the too do list , off work this week which is a crap week to have off because of the weather , but I’m reading things and looking at things I wouldn’t normally have time to do ,
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Iain Robinson
29/12/2017 06:45:32 pm
I hope you enjoy your time off...there might be a day or two of fine weather, you never know! (I'm always the optimist :-) Glad I jogged your memory, anyway!
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29/12/2017 08:18:48 pm
I visited about ten days ago to get some 'stock' shots for a proposed,very detailed movie about the Watkin Path.
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29/12/2017 08:24:06 pm
I visited about ten days ago to get some 'stock' shots for a proposed,very detailed movie about the Watkin Path.
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