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 18 August 2003 Llanberis - Welsh Slate Museum
The Welsh Slate Museum at Llanberis, in beautiful Snowdonia, has been extensively re-launched following investment of some £1.6-million in grant funding. The hefty cash injection has enabled the museum to do even more to bring to life the story of the north Wales slate industry, which for almost 200 years was one of the key components of the area's industrial revolution. Slate brought much wealth to the Welsh economy, but it also transformed many of the most beautiful green mountain valleys into murky, desperate, places of hard work, and often, despair. The hours were long, pay was derisory, and many workers died before their time through ill-health and accidents. No Health and Safety Executive in those days. At one time, over 3,000 men worked here, but it's over 30 years since the slate quarry here closed, and now the museum is testimony to the history of the site. It is sited in Victorian workshops which were constructed in the shadow of Elidir mountain, site of the vast Dinorwig Quarry. The place is designed to be not so much a museum as a preserved pocket of history. It is as though the quarrymen and engineers have just put down their tools and left the courtyard for home, only hours before. And the plus is, the nearby hills are much lovelier than they would have been in those days. Wooded The lottery grant has also made it possible to offer the visitor an enhanced day out in the richly-wooded lakeside landscape of what is now the Padarn County Park (once the quarry site). It is a prime example of how grotty industrial land can be regenerated in a positive way. All visitors can now enjoy a close-up exploration of the largest working waterwheel in mainland Britain, plus slate-splitting demonstrations by traditional hand-craftsmen, revealing the skills and artistry of generations of quarry workers (these are a regular event). There is also information on the perilous ups and downs of life in the slate mine, including a unique restoration of the machinery which was used to transport the slate. There is also "To Steal A Mountain", an innovative, 3D multi-media presentation evoking the hard lives and gruelling labour of the quarrymen over the decades. You can tour the workshops, the iron and brass foundry, forges, loco shed, and the waterpowered machinery which made the tools for getting slate, as well as the chief engineer's house in the museum quadrangle, furnished to 1911 standards. The old wash-house is another port of call. Rescued The highlight for many visitors will be the latest addition to the site, a row of four quarrymen's houses, all rescued from demolition in Blaenau Ffestiniog. Like some giant paint-by-numbers picture, thousands of numbered stones were reassembled, to try and recapture significant periods from the life of slate. One house is furnished as it would have been back in 1860, one as it would have looked during the Penrhyn strike of 1901, and the third is detailed as a cottage would have been at the time of the quarry's closure in 1969. The fourth cottage offers facilities for interactive learning for schools, children, and their families, and is one of many educational and play activities being developed on the site. Like much of north Wales, the Slate Museum is surrounded by stunning countryside. It is on the shores of Llyn Padarn, at the terminus of the Llanberis Lake Railway, one of the "Great Little Trains of Wales", which runs along the shoreline. When you have looked around the museum, you can explore the footpaths created over the years by the quarrymen as they walked to and from their work. There are pleasant lakeside picnic areas. At the former Quarry Hospital, you can learn how injured miners were treated. Nearby Llyn Padarn offers a wide range of watersports, including fun boats, canoeing, windsurfing, and sailing at Padarn Water Sports Centre. And, if you're feeling energetic, there's always Snowdon to climb, or take the Snowdon Mountain Railway. Back |
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