Dinorwic

Book excerpt: The Dinorwic Quarry at Llanberis, now the home of the National Slate Museum and the Electric Mountain Visitor Centre, was once one of the largest slate quarries in the world. Today, the scars of the terraces on the side of the Elidir Fach and Elidir Fawr, along with the tips of slate waste, are silent testimony to the industrialisation of this beautiful north Wales valley. Once employing thousands of men, the quarry was the major source of income for many communities, not only in the shadow of the mountain itself, but as far away as the east cost of the Isle of Anglesey from where many workmen travelled by boat and train every weekend to live in the spartan conditions of the quarry barracks. Slate quarrymen were a special breed of highly skilled workers who laboured in what would now be seen as appalling conditions in the face of the prevailing elements, forever running the risk of death, ill-health and serious injury.