144. 12.06.2012 Off the rails

144. 12.06.2012 Off the rails

This is the view from the top of one of the old inclines at  the Dinorwic Slate Quarry, overlooking the beauty of Snowdonia.

 It was the second largest slate quarry in the world  after the neighbouring Penrhyn Quarry. It covered more than 700 acres with 20 galleries plus all the usual tramways and inclines

Mining here first took place in 1787, when as was so often the case in Welsh history, an English landowner who via an act of parliament gained ownership of  a large part of the parish of Llanddeiniolen. He evicted the people who lived and worked the land and exploited the mountains for his own wealth. A vast wealth. This enabled him to build his small abode on the Vaynol Estate near Bangor. That’s the place with the high walls, the gate lodges and all the rest of the trappings of vulgar wealth.  With no regards to the 3000 men who toiled in the quarries, his wealth increased although he never actually dirtied his hands on the slate or inhaled slate dust. He spent most of his days playing cricket for which he was also famed. When not playing cricket or counting his pennies he no doubt spent the rest of the time looking at his plain and dull wife and humouring his spoiled children. His son who inherited his wealth also went on to be a cricket fanatic and via marriage went on to gain even more wealth. They entered politics to ensure that their rights and wealth were protected – something that members of a certain party still do today.

As their  greed continued there was no regard for the  3,000 men who toiled and slaved in the quarry and lived in cold and damp barracks away from their families. There was even less regard for the mountains.  Today the vast scars, dereliction and destruction of the mountains blight the valley and are a sad reminder of social injustice. There are more huge slags clinging to the valley sides than you could expect to see clinging to lamp posts and  railings on a Saturday night in Manchester. On the plus side the slags here might not be scantily clad with festering naval piercings and tattoos for all to see, but they are to be brutally frank just as unappealing to the eye.

  By 1930 its working employment had dropped to 2,000, it kept a steady production until 1969 when the remaining quarrymen went on their annual summer leave to return to the news that they had lost their jobs.

The bleakness, the piles of filthy slag, the dereliction and destruction make it the ideal set for films and TV including Dr Who, Blakes 7 and the films Willow and Clash of the Titans. Mortal Combat 2 (which to be brutally frank sounds even more shit than Mortal Combat 1) as well as one of the Tomb raider bilge films with Lara Croft.