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Blaenau
Ffestiniog was once the capital of the slate industry
in Wales. At the beginning of the 19th century, Ffestiniog
was a 'small, poor village' with a few isolated farmsteads,
and sheep were as important as slate to the early pioneers. Slate eventually
became the basis of the  wealth
in Snowdonia and Blaenau Ffestiniog became the centre of the industry. The
industry prospered and Blaenau Ffestiniog became the "town that roofed
the world", and when entering the town through the usual grey damp
mist via the Crimea Pass you could be forgiven for thinking that this was
the town that sits on the roof of the world.
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The town is set in an elevated
natural bowl between the Manod and Moelwyn Mountains of Snowdonia. Despite
being in the centre of the Snowdonia National Park, the grey slate waste
tips that surround the town prevented it from being officially included
in the national park.
Today slate extraction employs only a fraction of its former labour force,
( 4000 men in the 1880's), but the town has to some extent reinvented itself
as a tourist destination with two quarries offering trips into the massive
underground caverns built by the slate workers.
 A
writer from the
Boston Globe states : "Blaenau
Ffestiniog is smack in the middle of the gorgeous Snowdonia National Park,
and yet one of the ugliest spots you'll find in north Wales. The air itself
seems permeated with a dark gray cast.... The slate history of the town
is everywhere. Stone houses are roofed in slate, stone steps leading through
town are slate, and shops feature slate products in their windows. But most
striking is the dead landscape that surrounds the town. The hills are lifeless
piles of gray rubble. ........ enormous mounds of waste rock now cover the
land. A gorgeous place it is not,......"
But at this point the author of the article softens towards Blaenau, much
like a traveller in Egypt might after realising the pyramids are more than
just piles of stones. Remarking on the demise of the slate industry, the
rise of tourism, and the opening of the award winning Llechwedd Slate Caverns
in Blaenau Ffestiniog, where you can take the Miner's Tramway
into the side of the mountain and into a succession of spectacular chambers
where a miner describes the working of the mine.
" Visitors
can take two ways down into the Llechwedd caverns, where more than 600 men
once worked.
The longer trip is via a small railway that drops almost 400 feet down a
steep incline, making it the steepest rail track in Great Britain. ..........Most
of the way, the only illumination is that approximating the candlelight
the miners used to work by, and the passageways have low openings you sometimes
don't see till you walk into them. The dim caverns are.....heat-free: a
steady 48 degrees or so, with water dripping on you periodically and puddles
on the floor. It feels colder than it sounds. In each cavern "room,"
there's a taped narration by an actor in the guise of one of the 19th-century
miners, telling the story of Victorian life underground. .......... The
disembodied voice, hanging in the dark, gives the small details that re-create
a world. You're standing there, damp, chilled, and increasingly claustrophobic,
watching a few tiny pinpoints of light in a corner. The voice tells how
the new young miners often didn't have enough money to buy candles, so they
had to share the light of someone else's candle to work, until they earned
enough to purchase their own. And suddenly it seems even darker, and wetter,
and colder."
Read the complete article from the
Boston Globe >>
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