Blaen y Cwm Quarry
Encyclopedia
Slate industry in Wales
The slate industry in Wales began during the Roman period when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in...
located east of Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It has a population of 5,000, including Llan Ffestiniog, which makes it the third largest town in Gwynedd, behind Caernarfon & Porthmadog. Although the population reached 12,000 at the peak of the slate industry, the population fell due to...
in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. It was first worked in some time between 1813 and 1818 and sporadically after that until 1914. The quarry was connected to the Ffestiniog Railway
Ffestiniog Railway
The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....
at Duffws Station via the Rhiwbach Tramway
Rhiwbach Tramway
The Rhiwbach Tramway was a British industrial narrow gauge railway connecting the remote slate quarries east of the Blaenau Ffestiniog with the Ffestiniog Railway.- History :The tramway was built by the Festiniog Slate Quarry Co. Ltd...
.
History
Blaen y Cwm and the nearby Cwt y Bugail QuarryCwt y Bugail Quarry
The Cwt y Bugail Quarry was a slate quarry located east of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales. It was first worked as a trial pit around 1840. Continuous production began in 1863 and continued until closure in 1961...
both sit on land that was owned until the 1860s by the Wynne family of Peniarth. The first indication of quarrying activity on the Blaen y Cwm site is a map from 1818 that shows a modest quarry here. These early workings continued for some years on a small scale.
In 1838 the quarry was leased for 21 years to Adam Gregory who also held the lease for Cwt y Bugail as well as a number of other Welsh mines and quarries. Gregory's operations were not a financial success and in 1949 he surrendered the lease to Blaen y Cwm.
In 1853, brothers Thomas and James Swinton Spooner of the Ffestiniog Railway
Ffestiniog Railway
The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....
leased Blaen y Cwm and worked it for two years. The Spooner family planned to extend the Ffestiniog Railway to the nearby Rhiwfachno Quarry, with branches to serve the local cluster of quarries at Blaen yt Cwm, Cwt y Bugail and Rhiwbach. Despite a bill being put before Parliament
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...
in 1854 this scheme was dropped and the lease for the quarry again was given up.
In 1861 a new lease for Blaen y Cwm was granted to Hugh Beaver Roberts of Bangor
Bangor, Gwynedd
Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...
. This lease passed through several hands in a series of dubious transactions before settling with William Henry Gatty of Market Harborough
Market Harborough
Market Harborough is a market town within the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England.It has a population of 20,785 and is the administrative headquarters of Harborough District Council. It sits on the Northamptonshire-Leicestershire border...
. He began to work the quarry under the title the Blaenycwm Slate Company.
Production on a relatively small scale continued through the 1870s, but the quarry, now known as Pen-y-ffridd, was abandoned by 1888. In 1889 the quarry was purchased by E.P. Jones the manager of Diffwys Quarry, who worked it that year and in 1890, but again slate extraction ceased from 1891 to 1897.
Another attempt to work Blaen y Cwm started in 1898 under the ownership of the new Blaenycwm Slate Quarry Co. Ltd. This lasted until 1903, but was voluntarily wound up.
The final attempt to make a success of the quarry began in 1904 with a new company. This worked on a limited scale until 1906, followed by a hiatus until revived in 1910. The quarry finally closed on May 8, 1914. Apart from some surface extraction of "rustic slates" by a local man in the 1960s, Blaen y Cwm did not operate again.
Transport
Until about 1820 the output of Blaen y Cwm was shipped by packhorsePackhorse
.A packhorse or pack horse refers generally to an equid such as a horse, mule, donkey or pony used for carrying goods on their backs, usually carried in sidebags or panniers. Typically packhorses are used to cross difficult terrain, where the absence of roads prevents the use of wheeled vehicles. ...
via Cwm Machno. From that date onwards, slate was shipped out, still on packhorse, over the mountain to Ffestiniog
Ffestiniog
Ffestiniog is a community in Gwynedd in Wales, containing several villages, in particular the settlements of Llan Ffestiniog and Blaenau Ffestiniog. It has a population of 4,830....
and on to Porthmadog
Porthmadog
Porthmadog , known locally as "Port", and historically rendered into English as Portmadoc, is a small coastal town and community in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd, in Wales. Prior to the Local Government Act 1972 it was in the administrative county of Caernarfonshire. The town lies east of...
.
From 1869 the quarry used the Rhiwbach Tramway
Rhiwbach Tramway
The Rhiwbach Tramway was a British industrial narrow gauge railway connecting the remote slate quarries east of the Blaenau Ffestiniog with the Ffestiniog Railway.- History :The tramway was built by the Festiniog Slate Quarry Co. Ltd...
to connectwith the Ffestiniog Railway
Ffestiniog Railway
The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....
at Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It has a population of 5,000, including Llan Ffestiniog, which makes it the third largest town in Gwynedd, behind Caernarfon & Porthmadog. Although the population reached 12,000 at the peak of the slate industry, the population fell due to...
. Until 1872 the slate was carried by hand or wheelbarrow
Wheelbarrow
A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles to the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is made of two words: "wheel" and "barrow." "Barrow" is a...
uphill to the tramway. An incline
Cable railway
A cable railway is a steeply graded railway that uses a cable or rope to haul trains.-Introduction:...
was constructed in 1872 that allowed a less manually intensive direct connection between the internal quarry tramways and the Rhiwbach Tramway above. The incline was unusual in that the haulage engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
was located at the bottom.
The internal quarry tramways were laid in very light rail suitable for hand working of single wagons. They were laid to a nominal gauge of throughout, matching the gauge of the Rhiwbach Tramway. There is no evidence that locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
s were ever used within the quarry.