I don't really post many surface photos however I'm now amassing a collection of photos from the surface. These are taken over various trips in the past few years and some may also be repeated from some of my other reports.
A brief summary from wikipedia:
Rhosydd Quarry is a slate mine northeast of Porthmadog in North Wales. Small-scale working of the site began in the 1830s, but was hampered by the remote location, and the lack of a transport system to carry the slates to markets. The Rhosydd Slate Company was formed in 1853, and became a limited company in 1856. Transport was made more difficult by the attitude of the Cwmorthin Quarry, through whose land the most obvious route to the Ffestiniog Railway ran. A solution was found in 1864, with the opening of the Croesor Tramway, to which the quarry was connected by one of the longest single-pitch inclines in Wales. Huge amounts of money were spent on development work, and the company, unable to make adequate returns, went into voluntary liquidation in 1873.
The quarry was auctioned in 1874, and the New Rhosydd Slate Quarry Company Ltd was formed. Unlike its predecessor, the directors were all Welsh, and three-quarters of the shareholders were also from the local area. The quarry prospered for a while, but then profitability declined, and in 1900, a large section of the underground workings collapsed. The job of opening up new areas was spearheaded by Evan Jones, who nearly succeeded, but was hampered by a slump in the slate industry and the onset of the First World War, when the quarry was "non-essential" and was mothballed. It reopened in 1919, but was in a poor financial position, and was bought by members of the Colman family, better known for producing mustard. They kept it running until 1930, but failed to find markets for the finished product. It was mothballed until 1947, when it was sold, but new plans to reopen it failed, and the pumps were turned off in 1948, after scrapmen had removed much of the machinery.
en.wikipedia.org
Im going to try and go into a bit more detail than usual on the photographs, all information is from 'Rhoysdd slate Quarry' by M.J.T Lewis and J.H Denton. The book is an excellent resource of the history and remains of the quarry from the beggining until it was written in 1993.
Looking down the incline at Cwm Croesor, here the slate was shipped down the incline to Porthmadog where it was shipped all around the world. It was built in 1864 at a cost of £2500 (this includes the tramway from the quarry. On the left you can see the incline going up towards Croesor quarry. At the bottom of the inclines is the power station which powered Croesor quarry and currently provides to the national grid.
The winding drum was placed higher up the mountainside due to the tramway being built on a narrow ledge, which you will see in the next photo. During the peak production of the quarry around 18 waggons a day used the incline. In the begining wagons were loaded fairly full at around 2 ton 7 cwt (2380kg) but this slowly reduced to 1 ton 13 cwt (1666kg.) There was a brake level which came down to the level where I'm standing which also had a small hut for the brakeman to shelter from the full force of Irish sea weather.
A view showing the shelf cut into the mountainside, parts of the embankment are now crumbling away due to erosion. The summit in the centre-right is Cnicht also known as the Welsh Matterhorn.
Changing locations and seasons now to Cwm-orthin. These were taken on a camping trip to Wales in November 2017 - Yes it was completely freezing.
Built in 1867 a chapel was built on the track between Cwmorthin quarry and Conglog quarry. It was a Calvinistic Methodist chapel which also doubled as a school on weekdays. It was built by private subscription and cost somewhere between £250-£300 to build, materials was brought via the Croesor tramway. The Conglog tramway was built 10 years later more or less infront of the chapel. Until the 1990s it still retained some of its roof.
Plas Cwmorthin, the managers house was at the end of the valley protected from the wind by some of the few trees in the valley.
Another view now in a ruined state. Built in 1860 there was 11 people living here including the manager, his family, servants and 2 clerks taken in as lodgers. There was four rooms on the ground floor and five bedrooms upstairs and a basement. It was then lived in by a succession of quarry agents until the 1930s when Evan Jones moved out because of his daughters health - the mines also closed around the same time.
These days the building is little more than a shell.
The steep track up to Rhosydd, the workings in this photo are part of Conglog slate quarry. Click for my Report on Conglog.
By all accounts it was formerly a well kept wide track, however lorries were used on it in the 1940s (presumably the scrapmen) and the constant rainfall has made it very loose. However Bear Grylls made it up in his Landrover not too long ago.
Looking back down the Cwm you can see Cwmorthin in the distance, the chapel by the trees on the right, Plas Cwmorthin on the left and Conglog in the fron of the shot.
The big house in the centre of Conglog is actually part of Rhossyd, when they were built in 1865 Conglog quarry didn't exist. Im sure the residents were not impressed as the round building was the explosives store for Conglog. By the 1920s only a single family was left, after Evan Jones moved out they moved into the managers house.
The former house is now used as a sheep pen of all things.
The aborted 40ft wheel pit next to the stream which comes from a lake up the hill. Nobody knows why they built such a big structure for it.
Looking down the incline from floor 4 downwards, it turns a corner and goes down another incline to floor 9 at the bottom - coming out next to the adit. Each incline drops around 100ft.
This next photo is taken from the tip on left in the photo above. It shows the barracks and former mill level down on floor 9. It also shows the sheer scale of the completely artificial hill that I'm stood on.
Further up we reach floor 3. Down in the background is the floor 4 barracks and smithy.
Floor 3 mill was built in 1856 and was extended at least twice to accomodate more saw tables. The long room once housed a waterwheel upto 22ft in diameter.
The mill closed in 1867 and most of the machinery was taken down to the 9 mill.
The earliest workings were an open quarry known as the west twll. Due the age of the workings up here very little survives as most of the workable slate will have been used elsewhere in the quarry. Still after walking up the hill it makes a nice level path.
Looking inside the West twll from Floor 2 adit. This drops all the way from floor 1 to floor 5 and it is possible to get into the mine via a backfilled chamber. It is a good drop down to the bottom and there is some massive collapses of the quarry edge.
Floor 4 was used as a reservoir after it was worked it. This shaft from floor 2 drops around a 100ft into floor 4.
A poor photo this one but it's the only one I have of the eastern twll created by a collapse in 1900. The whole eastern workings underground are ruined because of this fall.
Another photo of the floor 3 mill.
The incline up to the higher levels with a large tip. The floor 9 entrance is at the base of the incline.
The barracks on floor 9. These were the main barracks for the company layed out like a street with a similar block on the other side of the tramway.
Another view of floor 9. Note the walkers on the incline giving a scale to the photo.
I would hazard a guess that this was used for a waterwheel for the haulage on floor 9.
Apologies the information died out towards the end. It took me longer than I thought to write and I have to go to work.
A brief summary from wikipedia:
Rhosydd Quarry is a slate mine northeast of Porthmadog in North Wales. Small-scale working of the site began in the 1830s, but was hampered by the remote location, and the lack of a transport system to carry the slates to markets. The Rhosydd Slate Company was formed in 1853, and became a limited company in 1856. Transport was made more difficult by the attitude of the Cwmorthin Quarry, through whose land the most obvious route to the Ffestiniog Railway ran. A solution was found in 1864, with the opening of the Croesor Tramway, to which the quarry was connected by one of the longest single-pitch inclines in Wales. Huge amounts of money were spent on development work, and the company, unable to make adequate returns, went into voluntary liquidation in 1873.
The quarry was auctioned in 1874, and the New Rhosydd Slate Quarry Company Ltd was formed. Unlike its predecessor, the directors were all Welsh, and three-quarters of the shareholders were also from the local area. The quarry prospered for a while, but then profitability declined, and in 1900, a large section of the underground workings collapsed. The job of opening up new areas was spearheaded by Evan Jones, who nearly succeeded, but was hampered by a slump in the slate industry and the onset of the First World War, when the quarry was "non-essential" and was mothballed. It reopened in 1919, but was in a poor financial position, and was bought by members of the Colman family, better known for producing mustard. They kept it running until 1930, but failed to find markets for the finished product. It was mothballed until 1947, when it was sold, but new plans to reopen it failed, and the pumps were turned off in 1948, after scrapmen had removed much of the machinery.
Rhosydd quarry - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Im going to try and go into a bit more detail than usual on the photographs, all information is from 'Rhoysdd slate Quarry' by M.J.T Lewis and J.H Denton. The book is an excellent resource of the history and remains of the quarry from the beggining until it was written in 1993.
Looking down the incline at Cwm Croesor, here the slate was shipped down the incline to Porthmadog where it was shipped all around the world. It was built in 1864 at a cost of £2500 (this includes the tramway from the quarry. On the left you can see the incline going up towards Croesor quarry. At the bottom of the inclines is the power station which powered Croesor quarry and currently provides to the national grid.
The winding drum was placed higher up the mountainside due to the tramway being built on a narrow ledge, which you will see in the next photo. During the peak production of the quarry around 18 waggons a day used the incline. In the begining wagons were loaded fairly full at around 2 ton 7 cwt (2380kg) but this slowly reduced to 1 ton 13 cwt (1666kg.) There was a brake level which came down to the level where I'm standing which also had a small hut for the brakeman to shelter from the full force of Irish sea weather.
A view showing the shelf cut into the mountainside, parts of the embankment are now crumbling away due to erosion. The summit in the centre-right is Cnicht also known as the Welsh Matterhorn.
Changing locations and seasons now to Cwm-orthin. These were taken on a camping trip to Wales in November 2017 - Yes it was completely freezing.
Built in 1867 a chapel was built on the track between Cwmorthin quarry and Conglog quarry. It was a Calvinistic Methodist chapel which also doubled as a school on weekdays. It was built by private subscription and cost somewhere between £250-£300 to build, materials was brought via the Croesor tramway. The Conglog tramway was built 10 years later more or less infront of the chapel. Until the 1990s it still retained some of its roof.
Plas Cwmorthin, the managers house was at the end of the valley protected from the wind by some of the few trees in the valley.
Another view now in a ruined state. Built in 1860 there was 11 people living here including the manager, his family, servants and 2 clerks taken in as lodgers. There was four rooms on the ground floor and five bedrooms upstairs and a basement. It was then lived in by a succession of quarry agents until the 1930s when Evan Jones moved out because of his daughters health - the mines also closed around the same time.
These days the building is little more than a shell.
The steep track up to Rhosydd, the workings in this photo are part of Conglog slate quarry. Click for my Report on Conglog.
By all accounts it was formerly a well kept wide track, however lorries were used on it in the 1940s (presumably the scrapmen) and the constant rainfall has made it very loose. However Bear Grylls made it up in his Landrover not too long ago.
Looking back down the Cwm you can see Cwmorthin in the distance, the chapel by the trees on the right, Plas Cwmorthin on the left and Conglog in the fron of the shot.
The big house in the centre of Conglog is actually part of Rhossyd, when they were built in 1865 Conglog quarry didn't exist. Im sure the residents were not impressed as the round building was the explosives store for Conglog. By the 1920s only a single family was left, after Evan Jones moved out they moved into the managers house.
The former house is now used as a sheep pen of all things.
The aborted 40ft wheel pit next to the stream which comes from a lake up the hill. Nobody knows why they built such a big structure for it.
Looking down the incline from floor 4 downwards, it turns a corner and goes down another incline to floor 9 at the bottom - coming out next to the adit. Each incline drops around 100ft.
This next photo is taken from the tip on left in the photo above. It shows the barracks and former mill level down on floor 9. It also shows the sheer scale of the completely artificial hill that I'm stood on.
Further up we reach floor 3. Down in the background is the floor 4 barracks and smithy.
Floor 3 mill was built in 1856 and was extended at least twice to accomodate more saw tables. The long room once housed a waterwheel upto 22ft in diameter.
The mill closed in 1867 and most of the machinery was taken down to the 9 mill.
The earliest workings were an open quarry known as the west twll. Due the age of the workings up here very little survives as most of the workable slate will have been used elsewhere in the quarry. Still after walking up the hill it makes a nice level path.
Looking inside the West twll from Floor 2 adit. This drops all the way from floor 1 to floor 5 and it is possible to get into the mine via a backfilled chamber. It is a good drop down to the bottom and there is some massive collapses of the quarry edge.
Floor 4 was used as a reservoir after it was worked it. This shaft from floor 2 drops around a 100ft into floor 4.
A poor photo this one but it's the only one I have of the eastern twll created by a collapse in 1900. The whole eastern workings underground are ruined because of this fall.
Another photo of the floor 3 mill.
The incline up to the higher levels with a large tip. The floor 9 entrance is at the base of the incline.
The barracks on floor 9. These were the main barracks for the company layed out like a street with a similar block on the other side of the tramway.
Another view of floor 9. Note the walkers on the incline giving a scale to the photo.
I would hazard a guess that this was used for a waterwheel for the haulage on floor 9.
Apologies the information died out towards the end. It took me longer than I thought to write and I have to go to work.
