WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SPRING 2014

The miners are nearly all gone now.
In the foothills, their equipment
rusts while roofless stone barracks
and work sheds testify to the scope
of the abandoned operations. But the
story of their industry lives on in the
National Slate Museum in Llanberis
and at palatial homes that once were
the refuges of their bosses -- the
“slate kings.” The most extravagant is
Penrhyn Castle, a grandiose confection
overlooking the Irish Sea near
Bangor.
“The importance of the slate industry
has been generally underestimated,”
noted Sager. At one time, Wales led
the world in slate production, bringing
immense wealth to the mine owners.
Much of that fortune ended up
with two English families that held
vast landholdings in North Wales
-- the Pennants of Penrhyn and the
Assheton-Smiths of Dinorwig.
The slate industry was focused in
locales near formerly hard-to-reach
towns: Bethesda, Blaenau Ffestiniog
and Llanberis. There, in deep quarries
and in mines, thousands were
employed (and went on to suffer
from lung diseases) and vast damage
ultimately was done to the environment
by an industry that helped define
Wales. To expand their market,
quarry operators opened the remote
mining areas by building rail lines to
bring the finished slate to ports on
the Welsh coast.
When you think of slate--but who
does--you realize how important a
product it once was. Output from the
quarries of Wales roofed the homes
of Britain and other countries. Billiard
tables relied on slate for a
smooth surface. And what schoolhouse
in years past didn’t have a slate
blackboard? While slate was used in
everyday life, it also defined in death
thousands whose burial headstones
are made of the rock.
Opposite page: Looking out of the abandoned Pen-y-Brynmine
tunnel. Top: Remains of the slate quarry at Dinorwig.
Center: Penhryn Quarry . Bottom: Early photo of slate workers .
Photo courtesy: WIKI commons
Wine Dine & Travel Spring 2014 85