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Photos courtesy: WIKI commons

Today, slate production is just a blip part of slate produced in Wales came sits cross-legged on a low stool, the
in Wales’ overall economy. A few firms from these two “bookend” quarries. block propped up by his knee, and with
still produce the “best in the world,” Dinorwig opened in 1787 and by the a miner’s hammer and chisel he chips
but in a much more responsible way. over very thin slices. Out of a good
1870s it employed more than 3,000
The home of the National Slate Muse- men, working jobs that ranged from quality piece two inches thick, an ex-
pert could conjure up to sixteen slates.”
um is Llanberis, a town known more as blasting open the slate seams to manu-
a holiday resort and a place to start the ally cutting each roofing tile to size. In Before the advent of electric energy,
hike to the top of 3,560-foot Mount July 1969, Prince Charles was invested the shops were powered by a huge wa-
Snowdon. There’s an easier way to the as Prince of Wales in nearby Caernar- ter wheel still in working order that was
top: the Mount Snowdon cog railway fon Castle on a dais made of Dinorwig attached to machinery by a system of
starts here as well. Within walking slate. A month later the quarry closed shafts and belts. Pattern makers work-
distance of the museum are two other down, a victim of competition and ing in a foundry could fashion any part
notable attractions, the Llanberis Lake non-slate roofing products. used by the quarrymen that may be
Railway, one of the “Great Little Trains After viewing a video entitled “To Steal needed, including the bell on a tower
of Wales,” and Electric Mountain, a vis- a Mountain” about the quarry op- clock.
itors’ center for one of the largest hy- eration, visitors can take a short walk Just 12 miles away from the jagged
droelectric plants in Europe. Tours take to the nearby base of the mountain, slate outcrops of Elidir Fawr Mountain
visitors deep into Elidir Fawr Mountain where they can see how it all worked. stands the coastal retreat of Penrhyn

to see the massive turbines and pumps.
As author Sager described, “When the Castle, the ancestral home of the Pen-
At the base of Elidir, the museum rockmen had finished the blasting, the nant family, who owned the massive
couldn’t be better placed. It occupies rubbishers brought out the slate and Penrhyn Quarry.
the Victorian workshops of the former the slag, and then the splitters and Operated today by The National Trust,
Dinorwig Quarry. Along with its near- dressers went into action. The former the home was designed in the Norman
by twin, the Penrhyn Quarry, the two split the blocks of slate, and the latter
quarries were the largest in the world, broke them up into standard sizes.” Revival style by architect Thomas Hopper
and was constructed from 1820-1832.
and employed approximately 6,000 Demonstrations at the museum show The Pennants, owners of the estate, be-
workers. For many years, the better
how the slate was sized. “The splitter came rich from sugar plantations in Ja-

86 Wine Dine & Travel Spring 2014