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Moelwyn Mawr

FfestiniogGwynedd geography stubsHewitts of WalesLlanfrothenMarilyns of Wales
Mountains and hills of GwyneddMountains and hills of SnowdoniaNuttallsSites of Special Scientific Interest in East GwyneddUnited Kingdom Site of Special Scientific Interest stubs
The summit of Moelwyn Mawr
The summit of Moelwyn Mawr

Moelwyn Mawr is a mountain in Snowdonia, North Wales and forms part of the Moelwynion. Its summit overlooks the Vale of Ffestiniog and has views in all directions.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Moelwyn Mawr (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Moelwyn Mawr
Bwlch Stwlan Walk,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.98369 ° E -4.00044 °
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Address

Level 3 Adit

Bwlch Stwlan Walk
LL41 3TP , Ffestiniog
Wales, United Kingdom
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The summit of Moelwyn Mawr
The summit of Moelwyn Mawr
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Croesor quarry
Croesor quarry

Croesor quarry is a large underground slate mine in North Wales which was served by Croesor Tramway. Small scale quarrying began in the 1846, and by 1861, there were two companies in operation. They amalgamated in 1865, a year after the quarry was connected to the newly opened Croesor Tramway. Much money was invested in development work, but volumes of useful slate produced were small, amounting to just 226 tons in 1868. Access to the underground workings was by a single adit, and the surface mill was powered by two water wheels. A change of ownership in 1875 did little to improve the profitability of the quarry, and it closed in 1878 or 1882. In 1895, the quarry reopened under the direction of Moses Kellow, a fearless innovator who set about modernising working practices and methods. The two-man teams working in the mill were no longer tied to a two-man team working underground, which enabled the mill to operate more efficiently. Following trials with air drills, he decided instead to electrify the mill, building a large hydro-electric station, which generated three-phase alternating current, rather than the direct current recommended by British manufacturers. He obtained motors from Prague, which were used to drive winches and an electric locomotive, the first to work in Wales. The water wheels were supplemented by Pelton wheels, supplied by Gilbert Gilkes of Kendal. His greatest innovation was the Kellow drill, a hydraulic drill for which he obtained six patents between 1898 and 1915. It could drill a 7.5-foot (2.3 m) hole in the slate in under two minutes, much less than the day required using hand drills. The mine was ventilated by a Guibal fan, housed in a fan-house near the entrance to the adit. Peak output under Kellow's direction was between 5,000 and 6,000 tons per year, though it declined in the later years, until the quarry closed in 1930. The chambers were used by Cookes Explosives to store propellants from the late 1940s until the early 1970s. This ceased when the Central Electricity Generating Board became aware of it, and feared that an underground explosion would damage the dams of the Ffestiniog pumped storage power station. Both lakes were drained until the explosives had been removed. The quarry was worked on seven levels, but the three below the adit level are now flooded. There was an underground link to the nearby Rhosydd quarry, and the "Croesor Rhosydd Through Trip" is a well known, if somewhat dangerous, route for mine explorers.

Rhosydd quarry
Rhosydd quarry

Rhosydd quarry was a slate quarry in the Moelwyn mountains, northeast of Porthmadog in North Wales. Small-scale working of the site began in the 1830s, but was hampered by the remote location, and the lack of a transport system to carry the slates to markets. The Rhosydd Slate Company was formed in 1853, and became a limited company in 1856. Transport was made more difficult by the attitude of the Cwmorthin quarry, through whose land the most obvious route to the Ffestiniog Railway ran. A solution was found in 1864, with the opening of the Croesor Tramway, to which the quarry was connected by one of the longest single-pitch cable-hauled inclines in Wales. Huge amounts of money were spent on development work, and the company, unable to make adequate returns, went into voluntary liquidation in 1873. The quarry was auctioned in 1874, and the New Rhosydd Slate Quarry Company Ltd. was formed. Unlike its predecessor, the directors were all Welsh, and three-quarters of the shareholders were also from the local area. The quarry prospered for a while, but then profitability declined, and in 1900, a large section of the underground workings collapsed. The job of opening up new areas was spearheaded by Evan Jones, who nearly succeeded, but was hampered by a slump in the slate industry and the onset of the First World War, when the quarry was "non-essential" and was mothballed. It reopened in 1919, but was in a poor financial position, and was bought by members of the Colman family, better known for producing mustard. They kept it running until 1930, but failed to find markets for the finished product. It was mothballed until 1947, when it was sold, but new plans to reopen it failed, and the pumps were turned off in 1948, after scrapmen had removed much of the machinery. Of the five slate veins in the region of Blaenau Ffestiniog, most of Rhosydd's output was extracted from the Old Vein. The workings started at the West Twll, where the rock outcropped, but the quarry soon developed into underground workings. A series of adits were constructed, to provide access as the mine got deeper, with the lowest at level 9. Trucks moved along this adit by attaching them to an endless chain, driven by a waterwheel. The mine eventually reached level 14, with rock raised by an internal incline to the level 9 adit. At its peak the quarry was one of the largest underground workings outside of Blaenau Ffestiniog, with 170 chambers.