“To steal a mountain” was the title of the introductory film in the National Slate Museum in Llanberis. And if you look at the mountainside above Llyn (Lake) Peris, you understand how this is meant: the Dinorwic quarry gapes like a giant wound in the scenic landscape of the Snowdonia Mountains. I was torn between two opinions. On the one hand: the slate industry is not yet represented on the WH list, and Wales has a large number of original remains to fill this gap. So clearly pro inscription. But on the other hand: Should this ugly industrial landscape really be preserved? Or should we hope nature recaptures all of this as soon as possible?

The Slate Industry of North Wales is scheduled for nomination in 2021. In May 2017 we spent five days in Llanberis. Our main goal was to hike in Snowdonia National Park, but there was also enough time to visit some sites of the slate industry. There is not much left in Llanberis from the heyday of the slate industry. Today the village at the foot of Snowdon summit is a centre for hikers and other outdoor activities in the national park.

The National Slate Museum was a good introduction to the topic of slate production. The museum is located at the former workshops of the Dinorwic quarry. Most interesting was the demonstration how the slate was splitted and cut to roofing shingles.
At the roundabout not far from the Slate Museum, a zigzag trail leads up to the Dinorwic quarry. The quarry was once the second largest slate quarry in the world, only the nearby Penrhyn quarry being larger. Dinorwic was closed down in 1969, the lower part is now used by a hydroelectric power plant, but the upper terraces are accessible (upper photo). On the way up we saw remains of machinery, winches and rail tracks, and ruins of quarry buildings. As an example: the Anglesey Barracks (lower photo), a double row of terraced cottages where the quarrymen stayed during the working week. Even from the ruins, you can sense the harsh and cramped living conditions in the 19th century. And we saw discarded rock, tons of it, slate wherever you look. No trace of "nature is recapturing the abandoned place".
The view from the top over the quarry, the lakes and the Snowdon Mountains is great. We enjoyed exploring the remains of the abandoned quarry. The hike was about 5 kilometers long with an altitude difference of about 500 metres, in most parts over slippery slate.

Only one day of heavy rain out of five days in the national park - not bad for North Wales in late May. And I wasn't unhappy about the one day with bad weather because I was able to convince my friends to visit another site of this TWHS: the Llechwedd Slate Caverns near Blaenau Ffestiniog. Here, the slate was mined underground, in contrast to the open quarries of Dinorwic and Penrhyn. This could be due to the fact that the deposits originate from different geological periods: Llechwedd from the Ordovician, the more northern deposits around Llanberis from the Cambrian.
A narrow-gauge tramway descends 150 meters below ground to the slate caverns. The tour leads through a network of tunnels and large chambers. The slate mine resembles more a salt mine than the narrow galleries of a coal mine or an ore mine. However, the first thing we saw when we got off the railway were boxes of cheddar, Cavern Cheddar. The cheese is matured down in the mine for 11 months. You can buy it in the souvenir shop, and of course, we tasted it. So you can choose between two souvenirs: the Cavern Cheddar (more tasty) or a roof shingle made of slate (longer durable).

We had short stops at a few other locations that might be part of the nomination: the ruins of the Ynysypandy Slate Mill, a large mill building and freely accessible; the Dorothea quarry in the Nantlle valley, another abandoned slate quarry; and Port Penrhyn, once the main port for the shipment of slate, but today nothing reminds of that time.

In recent years industrial and technical sites have been quite successful at the WHC sessions. Thus, I would expect inscription for the Slate Industry in North Wales in 2021.