Day 36 25/7/19 West Wales.

Went to visit the Llechwedd Slate Caverns today at Blaenau Ffestinog. This is an excellent place to visit one of the oldest slate mines in Wales as well as view the old workings, the waste heaps and if your game, enjoy one of the zip lines. There is even Glamping available if you need somewhere to stay in the area.

Literally Mountains of waste state everywhere

And more mountains

And even more mountains

The mine is no longer operating, it is to expensive and can't compete even the the product is superior to most slate being used today. Hover, they are recycling some of the waste into a number of products. One of the major Home Centre chains supplies these wire baskets full of slate as garden "ornaments", some is crushed for paths and other uses and some is even used by one manufacturer in toothpaste.

Slate filled baskets sold by one of the Gardening centre chains.

There must be millions of tons of waste slate lying around

The first mine in the area was open cut, and this is very unusual as the angle of the slate veins leans itself towards mining. The Llechwood mine was originally 14 levels with 5 being now above ground and 9 below ground. Two of these are accessible without special equipment, the rest are under water, very cold water. The two levels we visited were originally 500 feet below the top of the mine and the top of the mine is approximately 500 feet above sea level. Several mines shared the general area. At one time Wales supplied 26% of the worlds slate.

20 ton granite blocks are also being supplied to the South Coast of England to build a sea wall.

Granite blocks for sea wall construction.

The tour first takes you to the top of the mine to look at the gigantic piles of waste slate extracted from the mine. This is done in an ex British Army truck fitted with seats in the tray. The ride is pretty rough but well worth it. Our guide. Mal, was very knowledgeable and explained all about the mine workings, the mining process and life as a miner or slate cutter.

Nearly at the top (or at least as far as we can go

Looking back on the village

This is as high as we can go, the original open cut mine is just behind us but it is to unstable to visit.

Mt Snowdon is between us in the distance

Ti give you some idea of scale.

Old buildings have disappeared into the rubble

Original slate workshops

Old machinery visible through the windows

The cap of this level has been removed to get at the slate in the pillers

Original slate tunnel behind us

Truck gives you an idea of the size of the tunnel

Hydro Power generator. The village had electric street lighting before London and the generatornow provides its own electricity for the lights etc, Excess power is sold back to the grid.

Pipe for hydro generator going up the hill in the middle of the picture

After the above ground tour we then went underground (you can do either or both tours depending on your interest). A train takes you down the incline, originally used to transport, slate, waste rock, and workers into the mine, to the first underground level. You then walk through various tunnels and caverns and down a number of steps to the second level. From there the train collects you and returns you to the surface. Not to many pictures unfortunately, it was to dark.