The National Slate Museum (previously known as the Welsh Slate Museum and the North Wales Quarrying Museum) is located at Gilfach Ddu, the 19th-century workshops of the now disused Dinorwic quarry, within the Padarn Country Park, Llanberis, Gwynedd. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of relicts of the

Slate industry in Wales The existence of a 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 lat ...

. The museum is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) and part of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

History

The workshops which served the needs of the quarry and its locomotives, were built in 1870 on land created from the continuous tipping of spoil from the adjacent Vivian Quarry, and as a replacement for the store sheds which were previously sited there. Rail access to the works was by both

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

(the quarry gauge) and narrow gauge (that of the

Padarn Railway The Padarn Railway was a narrow gauge railway in North Wales, built to the unusual gauge of . It carried slate from Dinorwic Quarry to Port Dinorwic. The line opened on 3 March 1843, replacing the Dinorwic Railway. It initially used horses, ...

which carried the slate from the quarry to Port Dinorwic). Rails also entered the main yard through the main entrance. The quarry closed in 1969 and the site was opened on 25 May 1972 as the North Wales Quarrying Museum. The museum is now connected to the nearby village of Llanberis by the Llanberis Lake Railway, which uses part of the building as its workshops. The museum reopened after receiving a £1.6 million grant from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

and now has displays featuring

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

slateworkers' cottages that once stood at

Tanygrisiau Tanygrisiau is a village and area within Blaenau Ffestiniog in the upper end of the Vale of Ffestiniog in the county of Gwynedd, north-west Wales (). It can be found along the southern side of the Moelwyn mountain range and dates to around 1 ...

, near Blaenau Ffestiniog. They were taken down stone by stone and re-erected on the site. The museum includes the multi-media display, ''To Steal a Mountain'', showing the lives and work of the men who quarried slate here. The museum also has the largest working waterwheel in mainland Britain, which is available for viewing via several walkways. The waterwheel was constructed in 1870 by

De Winton De Winton & Co (1854–1901) were engineers in Caernarfon, Wales. They built, amongst other things, vertical boilered narrow gauge locomotives for use in Welsh slate mines and other industrial settings. At least six De Winton locomotives have ...

of Caernarfon and is in diameter, wide and was built around a axle.Plaque on the wall of the museum Close to the museum is the partly restored Vivian incline, a gravity balance incline where loaded slate wagons haul empty wagons back up.

Locomotives

The museum owns a number of locomotives from Welsh quarries

References

External links

National Slate Museum

National Slate Museum World Heritae Site
* {{authority control European Route of Industrial Heritage Anchor Points History of Gwynedd National museums of Wales Slate industry in Wales Industry museums in Wales Mining museums in Gwynedd Museums in Snowdonia Museums in Gwynedd Llanddeiniolen Articles containing video clips 1972 establishments in Wales Museums established in 1972