Friday, April 4, 2014

Britain From A to Z: S


Slate

One of the places we visited on our tour of Britain was an old slate mine in Northwest Wales. This is the site of the former Dinorwig Quarry that closed back in 1969. We were not looking forward to this visit as we thought it would be boring. We were wrong. It turned out to be a very interesting place to visit.

Dinorwig Quarry
 

Apparently the slate industry in Wales began during the Roman period and grew slowly until the early 1700’s. Then it grew rapidly until the late 1800’s. The Dinorwig Quarry and another nearby quarry, Penrhyn, became the two largest slate quarries in the world. For various reasons, the slate industry began a decline in the 1900’s leading to the closure of most of the larger quarries in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Dinorwig Quarry with Slate in Foreground

What is left of the Dinorwig Quarry is now a slate museum. Part of the tour took place in a small auditorium where a gentleman showed us how slate used to be split manually using a hammer and chisel. When asked who would like to try it, many people on our tour volunteered our son Andrew since they knew he could speak the Welsh language. I took a video of this event and present it here for your viewing pleasure.


There were many buildings with a plethora of equipment leftover from the slate production days. All this was self-guided and there was more to see than we had time to look at. Here are a couple of photos.



The UK’s economy is based on many things, but as we rode through the countryside in Scotland, England, and Wales, it appeared that much of it was based on sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. But given that the UK has the sixth largest economy in the world (based on GDP), it is obviously based on more than that. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find out what those are.

Outside Rhayader, Wales

Outside Rhayader, Wales

Rhayader, Wales
 

The Cotwolds, England


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