This paper was inspired by the industrial and railway aspects of a ten-week course on the “Evolution of Landscape in Snowdonia” organised by University of Wales Bangor at the Community Centre, Craig y Don, Llandudno and given early in 2002 by Gwilym T. Jones of the University of Wales, Bangor. The paper draws heavily on the writer’s longstanding interest in the narrow gauge railways of North Wales and in particular the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways.

Noel Walley,

Llandudno, 2002

Edited by the author for reproduction on this website, various dates. Photographs added December 2007, Noel Walley.

Snowdonia Defined

For the purposes of this study, the delimiters of Snowdonia were set as follows:

1. To the North: The Menai Straits

2. To the East: The Conwy Valley

3. To the West: The Caernarfon – Porthmadog Road (Afon Dwyfach)

4. To the South: The Vale of Ffestiniog

Based on the above definition, Snowdonia can be seen to include the Penmaenmawr granite quarries, the Bethesda and Dinorwig slate quarries, Blaenau Ffestiniog and its extensive slate mines, the Crimea Pass, the Lledr Valley and Cwm Machno and also the Nantlle and Bryngwyn groups of slate quarries, plus the Snowdonia tourist areas. The significant and extensive areas of the Snowdonia National Park to the southeast including the Rhinogs, the Arenigs, the Arans and Cader Idris are excluded from the area.

Quarrying in Snowdonia

Mining and quarrying down the centuries in Snowdonia had been concerned with the search for and extraction of non-ferrus metallic ores wherever they could be found. These workings had generally been abandoned by the 19^th century, but the evidence of such is there for all to see, leaving a permanent impact on the slopes of Snowdon itself.

At first slow to establish, by 1801, slate was being worked in each of the four main slate areas of Snowdonia. The impact of slate working on the landscape of Snowdonia came late but by the start of the nineteenth century the presence of the slate quarries was noticeable and the environmental impact of this quickly growing industry soon became enormous. Granite quarrying came to Snowdonia even later. More extensive than any other industrial activity in Snowdonia, the impact of quarrying is clear for all to see. Once it became established as a major industry, slate was to dominate in one form or another the Snowdonian labour market for over 150 years. This resulted in the establishment of new towns and villages, which in themselves were a factor in the evolution of the landscape. A good transport system was vital to the success of the quarries and most quarries were linked by narrow gauge railways and tramways to nearby ports and/or to standard gauge wharves for distribution throughout the country. This paper concentrates on the transport aspects of the slate industry, which significantly reduced handling costs and enabled quarrying to develop at a far faster rate than otherwise would have happened.

The establishment of the quarries led to the establishment of service industries especially iron foundries such as the Britannia foundry by the Cob at Porthmadog (now demolished and replaced by the local Tax Office) and the firm of De Winton at Caernarfon (this historic listed foundry in St. Helen’s Road survives as a plumber’s showroom). Both these companies served the ship building industry as well as quarrying, mining and railways. De Winton & Co. also built a small steam engine for quarry use with a distinctive vertical boiler adapted from that firm’s marine experience. These engines were hand built to order and it is believed no two were identical although all were similar. Iron beams cast by De Winton & Co. survive in the roof of the former railway tunnel, now a little used road tunnel, under the centre of Caernarfon.

The People in Mining and Quarrying – Housing

In the early 19^th century, most quarrymen were also farm labourers or smallholders and quarrying for some was only a part time occupation. But many men travelled considerable distances on foot to work, leaving home very early on Monday and stayed all week at the quarries living in barracks and then walking home on Saturday afternoon. Later, trains and even later, buses enabled them to stay at home and travel daily to work. Those who travelled by train would pass the time engaged in conversation or story telling or on the Ffestiniog Railway at least (where the later quarrymen’s carriages held 14 men) formed themselves into small choirs. However, many men tired of hours of travelling or lonely barracks and built for themselves cottages or had built for them terraced cottages near the quarries – in this way new villages and towns like Bethesda and Blaenau Ffestiniog became established in the countryside. Many of the old quarry barracks have been demolished or put to other use but others remain derelict. The 20^th century saw the building of local authority housing to meet the increasing needs.

The People in Mining and Quarrying – Industrial Relations

Important in any industry are the relationships existing between master and servant, within the place of work, and between different groups of men. This is as true in the slate industry as anywhere. At Bethesda, there was just one master, Lord Penrhyn, the only employer of quarry labour, and Bethesda had quite the worst labour relations of the whole industry. Llanberis had Dinorwic quarry, the principal employer, but also ten smaller employers across the valley. All are now closed. But it was at Ffestiniog with its multiplicity of employers big and small that, it has been said, the best labour relations and loyalties were to be found. Today, Ffestiniog produces very little slate. The Bethesda strike, early in the 20^th century, through stubbornness and high principles on both sides, lasted three years – when it ought to have been settled in three months or less. This strike did lasting damage to the slate industry as customers looked elsewhere for roofing materials. Some men continued to work during the strike. But also, two large male-voice choirs toured Britain raising contributions for the strike hardship funds. Great bitterness and long lasting animosity developed between strikers and strikebreakers and between the workforce and the proprietors, poisoning community relations. These damaging results continue to this day. Ironically Bethesda is the only quarry still producing slate in quantity.

Slate – Some General Considerations

Two simple lists of qualities and uses are sufficient to show why, given cheap transport, and an improved quality of life – in the kingdom as well as in the locality, the slate industry blossomed and flourished within two decades. Ultimately the high waste factor and the high levels of manual skill and effort needed to produce roofing slates, with no possibility of the mechanisation of the core skills, led to the quick demise of slate once mass production methods were introduced to the making of ceramic tiles.

Among its many qualities are the following:

1. Slate is impervious to water

2. Slate is chemically inert and impervious to chemical action

3. Slate possesses coldness

4. Slate is fire proof

5. Slate has almost no electrical conductivity

6. Slate surfaces are flat and can be polished

7. Slate can be carved and even turned on a lathe.

8. Slate possesses attractive natural colour-fast colours.

Among its many recorded uses are the following:

9. Roofing slates and walling material

10. Roman Aqueducts at Segontium

11. Tanks for liquids, be it water or beer or chemicals

12. Laboratory bench tops

13. Blackboards and writing tablets.

14. Dairy and bakery work surfaces

15. Billiard table beds and tombstones

16. Electrical Control Panels.

The Four Great Slate Deposits of Snowdonia

Most of the extensive deposits of roofing slate in England and Wales are to be found in Snowdonia and principally in the four major quarrying areas of Bethesda, Llanberis, Nantlle and Ffestiniog. Of these, the first three are comprised of the oldest slate in the world, the Cambrian. It is hard and brittle and is principally used for roofing. The fourth is the relatively softer and slightly younger Ordovician slate mined in the Ffestiniog district. The ‘Golden Age’ for Welsh Slate Production was the 19^th century when quarry owners made great fortunes. The 20^th century saw slate decline as rapidly as it had developed.

Bethesda Slate

The Penrhyn ‘blue’ copper-rich mudstone slate is the characteristic output of the Bethesda Quarry. The township of Bethesda on the A5 five miles south of Bangor was founded by quarrymen who worked in Lord Penrhyn’s quarry on the slopes of Elider Fawr to the west of that road. The first railway to be built in Caernarfonshire was the 1ft 10¾ ins. gauge horse tramway with inclined planes between relatively level sections designed and built in 1801 by Benjamin Wyatt, agent to the first Lord Penrhyn, for the carriage of slate from Bethesda to Port Penrhyn (6¼ miles). On the death of the first Lord Penrhyn, the quarry, tramway and port passed to Col. Douglas Pennant (a Penrhyn by marriage) who in 1866 was created Baron Penrhyn of Llandegai. At that time the quarry employed over 3,000 men and over 60,000 tons of dressed slate per annum were carried by horse tram to Port Penrhyn. In 1877, Lord Penrhyn had the railway rebuilt to plans prepared by Charles Easton Spooner (of the Ffestiniog Railway) on an altered course and without inclined planes to facilitate the use of locomotives. Three small engines were bought from De Winton of Caernarfon in 1878 and later Hunslet’s of Leeds supplied Charles, Linda and Blanche. Many other small engines worked in the quarry. A later connection at Port Penrhyn with the LMS main line enabled slate to be forwarded to British destinations by rail.[2]

The Penrhyn line did not operate a public passenger service. It did, however, possess a single coach, known as the ‘Penrhyn Coach’, for the use of Lord Penrhyn and his guests. It had been built by the quarry’s own staff. It is said that a fitter and a carpenter were sent to Bangor station and given a day to examine an L.N.W.R coach parked in a siding. They noted what was required – a scaled down version for the narrow-gauge line! The railway did however operate a workmen’s train comprising a rake of hand braked four wheeled completely open carriages. These carriages were not owned by the quarry but by a co-operative of the quarrymen and ran from the Quay to the Quarry with stations at Tregarth and Felin Hen. The last workmen’s train ran on 9^th February 1951.

For many years, prior to his retirement in the 1950’s, the quarry had a remarkable chief engineer J. H. Battersby who controlled the maintenance and operation of the 27 engines as well as all other machinery and equipment of the quarry and who was held in such high regard that, it is said, no independent boiler insurance tests were held, his certification being sufficient.[3] The line to Port Penrhyn finally closed on 26^th July 1962. Charles is preserved in his original condition at Penrhyn Castle. Linda & Blanche and most of the rails were bought by the Ffestiniog Railway and are still in use. These engines are remarkably powerful for their size and each has been totally rebuilt in the forty years since purchase by the FR during which time they have run in excess of 200,000 miles each.

The town of Bethesda, which takes its name from the principal nonconformist chapel, started as a small village built by and for the quarrymen working in Lord Penrhyn’s Quarry across the valley. It now occupies an area somewhat larger than that of the quarry itself. On the O.S. map, the quarry and its waste tips occupy a single site about 1½ miles long by about 1 mile wide for over half its length.

Early in the 1960’s a major engineering company with no previous experience in slate invested more than a million pounds in total modernisation and made a successful transformation of an ailing business. Today, Alfred McAlpine Ltd is the major producer in North Wales and offers Welsh slate for sale in three finishes ‘flamed’, ‘riven’ and ‘fine-rubbed’ each of the following colours ‘Heather Blue’, ‘Heather Red’ and ‘Heather Grey’ all from the Penrhyn Quarry plus ‘Blue-Grey’ from Ffestiniog and ‘Dark Blue-Grey’ from Cwt y Bugail (Ffestiniog). Alfred McAlpine Ltd also own The Hilltop Quarries in the USA and sell American-Cambrian slates in green, purple and red. The other major supplier of slate in Britain is the Westmorland Slate Company, which offers Spanish roofing slate with an expected life 40 to 50 years and American (not Hilltop) with a claimed life expectancy of over 100 years as well as traditional British slates, which will certainly last well in excess of 100 years.

Llanberis Slate

On the southwestern side of Elidir Fawr in the vale of Llanberis is the enormous Dinorwic Quarry formerly owned by the Assheton Smiths. When the quarry (effectively two quarries side-by-side) finally closed in 1969, there were 22 named galleries (ponciau) or level shelves on each side, although the layout is not nearly so symmetrical as the official charts and diagrams suggest (On a photograph there appear to be at least 27 levels). The width of the galleries varies from about twelve feet to a hundred feet or more. The two sides Garret Side and Braich Side each had their own inclines and lifts by which to lower the newly quarried slate to the dressing sheds below. There were nine permanent inclines on Braich side and ten on Garret side. Bottom level was at about 350 ft above sea level with the two highest levels at over 2,100 feet. Thus the quarry visibly stands one third of a mile high, over half a mile deep, and almost a mile in length, dominating the valley and with extensive waste tips on both sides. It is a natural skyscraper factory – yet every square-inch a man-made construction – the tallest factory in the world!

Across the valley, the Snowdon Mountain Railway, in its publicity flier for 2001, claims that its Halfway Station “stands at 1,641 ft (500 metres) the height of the world’s tallest building – The Petronas Tower in Kuala Lumpur”. The Dinorwic Quarries stand over 500 feet taller. Of course, it would be a better boast for the Malayan Skyscraper to say it is half the height of Snowdon, than that after half-an-hour’s huffing and puffing and a two mile journey, the little train has reached the roof of an Oriental building! The Snowdon Mountain Tramway and Hotel Company (entirely commercial) is of course responsible for the highest rubbish dump in Wales (as it was recently called). The Swiss (inventors, or so it seems, of public inquiries and referenda) built very many mountain railways (an American invention based on a British idea but fully developed in Switzerland with significant Italian help) in the teeth of enormous public opposition and consequently manage the summits rather better than we do. Walkers, I suspect, are responsible for a greater ongoing impact on Snowdon than the mountain railway and its passengers. But walkers (by the Llanberis path) and passengers alike get spectacular views of the Dinorwic Quarries.

In its hey-day the Quarry owned 25 steam engines operating on the 1ft 10¾ ins. quarry tramways. These engines often spent many years working always on the same level, since, owing to their weight, it was necessary to dismantle engines before they could be moved up and down the inclines. In order to maintain these locomotives, well-equipped engine sheds were provided on most levels. One engine, Bernstein, built new in 1898 spent 24 years shunting at Port Dinorwic then ten years at New York (600 ft) then, after overhaul, had a continuous spell of 33 years at Pen Garret 1,500 feet above sea level, during which time it had several major overhauls and the fitting of a new boiler. Red Damsel also had a new boiler fitted during an overhaul in Lernion shed at 1,860 feet above sea level. This was the highest engine shed in Britain. The total length of internal quarry lines was about 25 miles.[4] One of the lines was the village tramway that linked the main quarry with Dinorwic village and also the satellite quarry of Allt Ddu. This line ran along a road that was also part of the bus route and there are records of the quarry engine coming to the rescue of the village bus stuck in a snowdrift! Maid Marion was specially built in 1903 with a steam dome in order to meet the particular needs of this steep branch. She remained in use on the village branch for 27 years until replaced in 1930 by Lady Madcap. Engines when built new for the quarry tended to be named after favourite racehorses in the Assheton Smith stables.

Slate slab wagons called ‘car cyrn’, were specially designed for lowering down inclines (or hauling up laden with slabs), and conveyed the rough slate slabs to the cutting sheds – these sheds were built at convenient locations on the galleries. Owing to the very large amount of waste, it made no sense to take undressed slate down to Gilfach Ddu and then have to bring the waste back up for dumping. The quarry offices, the hospital and the extensive workshops for the maintenance of wagons, engines and equipment were located on ‘ground level’ in an impressive building at Gilfach Ddu where the slate industry museum is now housed. This fine building is said to be in the style of an Anglo-Indian fort.

Dressed roofing slates were taken from Gilfach Ddu to Port Dinorwic (Felinheli) by narrow gauge railway. The first line, involving the use of inclines, was built in 1824 and was of 1ft 10¾ ins. gauge. It was worked by horses. In 1843, in order to avoid the use of inclines, a new route was established, still horse worked, This new line was built using the quarries own labour but with James Spooner of Portmadoc as Consultant. By 1849, traffic was exceeding the capacity of a horse tramway and steam locomotives, still in their infancy, were introduced. These were built to a track gauge of exactly 4ft (i.e. 8½ inches narrower than the standard gauge). The first two engines, built by A. Horlock of South London, a lesser known builder, and named Fire Queen and Jenny Lind, they operated the trains to Port Dinorwic until 1886 when the first of three Hunslet 0-6-0 tank engines arrived.[5] These were named Dinorwic, Amalthaea and Velinheli. On withdrawal from service, Fire Queen, was deliberately walled up by the senior management (hidden – but with occasional cleaning and greasing), unusual preservation in the 19^th century. It is now preserved at Penrhyn Castle. On the 4 ft gauge main line, the 1ft 10¾ ins. gauge slate wagons were carried on 4 wheel flat wagons fitted with rails – an early example of the use of transporter-wagons – which continued until closure of the railway in 1961.

The Quarry Company had its head office at the port and also owned the ships sailing out of Port Dinorwic. One of their ships was said to have been the first vessel to sail into Manchester at the opening of the Ship Canal in 1894. A connection at Port Dinorwic with the LMS main line enabled slate to be forwarded to British destinations by rail. Slate trains continued to run to Felinheli (the original name of the port = ‘salt water mill’ = an ancient device for harnessing tidal rise and fall) until 1961, when diesel lorries took over the transport of finished slate.

Major rock falls in the 1950’s & 60’s had seriously hindered quarry operations and a quarry at Marchlyn two miles north of Dinorwic was reopened using modern methods and diesel trucks. The trains were scrapped and modern methods were extended to the Dinorwic quarry. But it was all too late. Capital expenditure had been very heavy and production was not recouping the costs. On July 10^th 1969, the Dinorwic Slate Quarries Co. Ltd., owners of the largest slate quarry in the world went into liquidation.

Unlike Bethesda, where there is almost complete separation of quarry and town on opposite sides of the valley, and yet paradoxically it would seem that the Bethesda quarrymen travelled shorter distances to work than elsewhere, Dinorwic has, in addition to the main quarries many smaller long disused quarries scattered over a wide area. Nor does Dinorwic have one significant town to match the size of Bethesda. Deiniolen, Llanberis, Cwmyglo, Llanrug, Bethel and many other places provided quarrymen. Some men walked from Waunfawr and others travelled weekly from Anglesey to lodge in the barracks.

The Dinorwic Slate Quarries Railway was late with the provision of a workmen’s train, but the workers had their own sturdy private enterprise, manually propelled, four wheeled, totally open, rail-cars called ‘Velocipedes’ or ‘Ceir Gwyllt’ and there were two types of ‘wild car’, the hand operated ‘Ceir Troi’ and the treadle operated ‘Ceir Cicio’. The Velocipedes were jointly owned by groups of workers and theoretically carried 16 men, although a few extra often managed to hang on. Speeds of up to 40 mph have been claimed. There were eventually 52 of these machines and one of each type is now preserved in Penrhyn Castle Museum. Racing was forbidden but popular and therefore accidents were common. In the worst accident the wild car plunged into the lake with loss of life.[6]

The workmen’s train of 23 carriages (including one spare) first ran in 1895 (46 years after the railway opened). The carriages are believed to have been obtained second hand from the Taff Vale Railway and were regauged at Gloucester. Each four-wheel coach seated sixty men in six compartments. So on Monday morning there might be over 1,300 passengers (including up to 120 men from Anglesey who crossed on the ferry from Moelydon to Felinheli and stayed in the quarry barracks during the week). The train of five coaches (seven on Mondays) left Penscoins (at the top of the incline from Port Dinorwic) “one hour and thirty minutes before the first Quarry Whistle” for the seven mile and 45 minute journey to Gilfach Ddu. Extra carriages were added en route, four at Bethel, seven at Pont Rhythallt and four at Penllyn. The men had to push the carriages by hand out of the siding and couple on to the back of the train and on the return they had to uncouple and push the coaches into the siding. The return train left Gilfach Ddu “thirty minutes after the last quarry whistle” Men travelling all the way paid 2/6d per month, those joining at Penllyn paid 1/3d, and the Anglesey men paid 1/- per month (for 4 or 5 return trips). Each man received a brass disc with the coach letter and the seat number (probably the only workmen’s service ever with reserved seats). The train continued to run until November 1947 when it was withdrawn. Over the years the number of quarrymen travelling on the train declined and latterly only three coaches were needed owing to the greater speed and convenience of the bus service (despite the higher fares).[7]

In its prime, all aspects of the railway and tramways were maintained in first-rate condition. The main line track, for example, was examined every morning by three trackmen who each walked one third of the line before the morning workmen’s train. Following the closure of the railway and the quarry, the level four foot trackbed of the railway from Gilfach Ddu, along the side of Llyn Padarn to Penllyn was re-laid to 1ft 10¾ ins gauge and reopened by Rheilffordd Llyn Llanberis as a tourist railway using three of the small quarry locomotives.

Across the valley on the southwest side of Llyn Padarn at Llanberis were a separate group of ten much smaller, independently operated slate quarries. These operated mostly on the lands of the Ruthin Charity Trust and the earliest was first worked c1700 and continued in operation until 1930, its neighbour was the last to close in 1931. They had formerly sent their output to Caernarfon by road (horse drawn carts) until the building of the L.N.W.R. Llanberis branch line in 1869, when transport costs were halved.[8]

Nantlle Slate

Slate quarrying in the Nantlle region was in progress before 1750. The area has many relatively small quarries that were eventually served by several different railway systems. The Nantlle Tramway was designed and built by Robert Stephenson (brother of George) originally as a plateway that at a late stage in construction became a tramway to a nominal 3ft 6ins gauge with double flanged wheels loose on axles. The line opened for traffic from the quayside at Caernarfon to Talysarn in 1828.[9] It originally served the Talysarn, Cilgwyn, Dorothea, and Cloddfarlon quarries and later the Penyorsedd quarry. In 1867 the Nantlle Tramway was amalgamated with the Caernarvonshire Railway and was for the greater part converted to standard gauge. The original feeder lines from Talysarn to the quarries remained as horse drawn 3ft 6ins gauge tramways and subsequently became part of the LNWR, LMS and eventually BR., until they were finally closed in or about 1963. In my railway accounting days at Crewe, I recall seeing hundreds of wagons listed as assets in the BR (LMR) accounts! Later, on a visit, I was surprised at the primitive design – unchanged for a 150 years.

The inclination of the slate strata in the Nantlle district mostly required the excavation of deep vertical pits of slate. These filled with water and thus required pumping. At the Dorothea Quarry is a large and very deep pit that has at its bottom a very deep freshwater lake. There are characteristics in respect of this location and lake that make it particularly suitable and attractive for the sport of diving. Efforts are currently being made by the owners to secure funds to enable the provision of proper facilities for diving with trained rescue and recovery services on hand. Meanwhile, unauthorised diving in this lake, without adequate facilities, has resulted in many accidents and some fatalities in almost every year since the quarry closed.

The North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways – Moel Tryfan Undertaking was a 1ft 11½ ins. gauge line designed and promoted by Charles Easton Spooner the Chief Engineer of the Ffestiniog Railway opened in 1877 from Dinas (south of Caernarfon) to Tryfan Junction and Bryngwyn.[10] At Bryngwyn, a gravity worked incline ascended at a gradient of 1 in 10 was owned and operated by the railway company. Radiating out from the drumhead were branch lines in the ownership of the various quarries that had linked their internal systems to the railway. These branches eventually served Alexandra, Moel Tryfan, Braich, Fron, and Cilgwyn quarries. Thus, from 1923, Cilgwyn was linked to both the Nantlle 3ft 6ins gauge tramway (then owned by the LMS) and to the Welsh Highland Railway (formerly NWNGR).

When the Welsh Highland Railway closed in 1936, only Moel Tryfan and Cilgwyn were still open.

Yet a third railway served a few outlying quarries to the south of the main Nantlle system, this was the horse drawn 3ft gauge Gorseddau Tramway, which started before 1845 as the Tremadoc Tramway between the township and Portmadoc Harbour. This line was extended in 1856 to serve the Gorseddau slate quarry – 8 miles north of Portmadoc. In 1872, this line was reconstructed to 1ft 11½ ins. gauge and incorporated as the Gorseddau Junction and Portmadoc Railways Company serving Ynysypandy, Braich, Gorseddau, Dol-Ifan-Gyfyng, the Cwm Dwyfor Mine and the Prince of Wales Quarry. Unfortunately, the poor quality of the slate at these quarries led to their early demise. They have left behind evidence of the grand scale in which they were planned. Firstly, at Ynysypandy is the ruin of a massive three-storey mill incorporating a large water wheel and intended for the manufacture of slate slab products from Gorseddau and from the lack of waste it is clear that the mill was little used. Secondly at Treforys in Cwmystradllyn are the ruins of eighteen pairs of rather grand suburban semis laid out along three roads complete with marked out garden plots. All clearly shown on aerial photographs.[11]

Ffestiniog Slate

The Ffestiniog ‘grey’ volcanic mudstone slate mined deep inside the mountains in the Ffestiniog area is the odd one out. It is a relatively soft Ordovician slate, easy to work and to carve and can even be turned successfully on a lathe.[12] It possesses excellent cleavage and produces some of the thinnest high quality roofing slates in the world. After the early 19^th century fire of Hamburg (following which the use of wooden shingles was forbidden there) these slates were exported from Portmadoc to Germany in large quantities. These notes on Ffestiniog slate and railway draw to a degree on my own compilation and that of my associates in the Ffestiniog Chronology.[13]

From 1684 or earlier, in the Ffestiniog area, men called slaters had undertaken building and repair work using slate that they had extracted from the hillsides on common land. However, the first recorded organised slate quarrying at Ffestiniog appears to have been (c1755-65) by Methusalem Jones, a quarryman from Cilgwyn, Nantlle, who was aware of the vast slate deposits that existed at Ffestiniog. He opened a small open quarry at Diphwys/Duffws on Lord Newborough’s Peniarth estate and this quarry was subsequently worked by partnerships of men mainly from Cilgwyn. Many more quarrymen moved from Cilgwyn to Ffestiniog during the second half of the eighteenth century[14]. The Diphwys quarry was sold in 1799 for £14,000 to William Turner (from the English Lake District) who was financed by the Casson brothers. Later, c1790, Lord Newborough opened Bowydd (later Votty & Bowydd) quarry to the west-southwest of Diphwys. These were the first significant workings of Ffestiniog Slate. Other names would quickly follow as the landowners began to cash in on the roofing material beneath their feet. In 1810, landowner Evan Owen with 17 men began production at Rhiwbach quarry four miles east of Diphwys and high in the mountains at about 1,300 feet. It is in Penmachno parish and had already been worked spasmodically by slaters, including those who had re-roofed Ysbyty Ifan church in 1774[15].

The quarry at Rhiwbryfdir Farm, on the Dinas estate owned by W.G. Oakeley of Plas Tanybwlch and first worked around 1814, was leased to Samuel Holland, who was to become one of the promoters of the Ffestiniog Railway. Holland soon sold his original lease to the Welsh Slate Company and opened a second quarry on the Oakeley estate at R’Allt Fawr (Cesail) higher up the mountain. The third Oakeley quarry lay between the two and was opened up by the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company. These three Dinas quarries were destined to become the largest slate producers in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area. In 1883, the Welsh Slate Company suffered a disastrous roof fall owing to their bad working practices, and 6¼ million tons of overburden collapsed into their workings. Following a long and acrimonious legal battle, title to the Welsh Slate Company assets passed to Oakeley in compensation for losses to the upper quarries, which had previously reverted to Oakeley.

By 1830, the slates from the three main Ffestiniog quarries (Diphwys, Bowydd and Rhiwbryfdir) were being carried for two miles in panniers on the backs of ponies or mules to Congl y Wal (mid-way between Duffws and Ffestiniog village) and then on carts hired out by local farmers, through Ffestiniog and down 700 feet over rough and muddy roads to small quays on the Traeth Bach along the shores of the of the Afon Dwyryd below Maentwrog. Small boats, each carrying 6 tons, and operated by boatmen known locally as Philistines and who came from Llanfiangel y Traethau or Llandecwyn, took the slates to the exposed anchorage of Ynyscyngar for a third trans-shipment to sea going vessels bound for Liverpool. Cost of transporting one ton of slate to this stage was 15s 6d, it having cost around £1 to quarry and dress.[16] Ffestiniog quarries were therefore at a serious disadvantage with the other major slate producing areas of North Wales (Penrhyn, Dinorwic and Nantlle), which, by 1828, were all served by tramways to the sea.. The year 1831 was to see the repeal of the duty on slate, and an explosion of demand.

First proposed in 1824[17] by Wm Madocks who died in 1828, then by several others, the Festiniog Railway Company was promoted by Samuel and Wm. Holland, and Henry Archer. Archer raised the original capital in Dublin, and the company (after much local opposition) was finally incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1832 and the railway opened in 1836.[18] The railway initially cost £42,000 to build and subsequent improvements (including, in 1844, a 730 yard tunnel under the Moelwyn range and the later introduction of steam engines) added a further £100,000 to the capital costs. The Festiniog Railway Company, incorporated in 1832, is now, as it has been for many years, the oldest railway company in the world still operating under its original charter of incorporation[19]. This unique distinction, if once lost, could never be regained. It is a responsibility of which the present Trustees are very conscious.

Despite the obvious advantages, the Ffestiniog slate producers were strangely reluctant to use the railway. Notwithstanding incentives such as grants to meet the costs of connection (building inclines) and the provision by the company of free slate wagons for the journey to Portmadoc, and even though the charge was 6/- per ton compared with over 15/- per ton by packhorse, road and river, some quarries were not connected to the railway until 1843 (seven years after it had opened) by which time the railway charges had dropped to 4/3d per ton and slate production had risen quickly to 44,000 tons per annum. By 1862, the population of Portmadoc had risen to 3,059 and slate traffic on railway had grown to 54,343 tons.

About 1845, John Greave

Name				height
				feet
Y Wyddfa (Snowdon)				3,560
Crib y ddysgyl				3,493
Crib Goch				3,023
Llanberis Pass
Elidyr Fawr				3,029
Y Garn				3,104
Glyder Fawr				3,279
Glyder Fach				3,262
Tryfan				3,010
Nant Ffrancon Pass
Pen yr Oleu Wen				3,210
Carnedd Dafydd				3,426
Yr Elen				3,151
Carnedd Llewelyn				3,484
Foel Grach				3,195
Foel Fras				3,091