Slate industry in Wales
The slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. Slate is mainly used for roofing, but is also produced as thicker slab for a variety of uses including flooring, worktops and headstones. In 1898, a work force of 17,000 men produced half a million tons of slate.
About Slate industry in Wales in brief
The slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the late 19th century. Slate is mainly used for roofing, but is also produced as thicker slab for a variety of uses including flooring, worktops and headstones. In 1898, a work force of 17,000 men produced half a million tons of slate. A bitter industrial dispute at the Penrhyn Quarry between 1900 and 1903 marked the beginning of its decline, and the First World War saw a great reduction in the number of men employed in the industry. The industry in North Wales is on the tentative World Heritage Site list whilst Welsh slate has been designated by the International Union of Geological Sciences as a Global Heritage Stone Resource. There is another band of Ordovician slate further south, running from Llangynnog to Aberdyfi, with a few outcrops in south-west Wales, notably Pembrokeshire. The Silurian deposits are mainly further east in the Dee valley and around Machynlleth. The Cambrian deposits run from Conwy to near Criccieth; these deposits were quarried in the Pen rhyn and Dinorwig quarries and in the Nantlle Valley.
There are smaller outcropped slate deposits elsewhere, for example on Anglesey. The Ordovicians run from Betws-y-Coed to Porthmadog; these were the deposits mined at Blaenau Ffestiniog. The earliest operating slate mine in Wales dates from the early 16th century when Plas Plas Aberllefenni was roofed in slates from a shipload of slates near Bangor. A poem by the 15th century poet Guto’r Guto asks the Dean of Bangor to send him slates to roof a house at Rhuddlan, near Denwenn. There was some transport by sea to the quarries fairly close to the Rhyl, but the slates were usually used by sea. The nearest deposits are about five miles away in the Cilgwyn area, indicating that the slate were not used merely because they were available on-site. The CilGwyn quarry in the 12th century and is thought to be the oldest in Wales. During the mediaeval period, there was small-scale quarrying of slate in several areas. The earliest record of slate quarrying was in 1413 when a rentm ap Griffith records that several of his tenants were paid 10,000 slates, each for 5 pates each for each house in Aberfenn. The Oakeley mine at Aberlfenn, near Llanberis, may have started operating as a mine as early as the 14th century as a slate mine.
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This page is based on the article Slate industry in Wales published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
