View from across the river
Close up of Water Wheel
Cwm Cipwith Copper Mine, North Wales. Thanks to its distance from a road and to the efforts of a few individuals at the Snowdonia National Park, this is one of the best surface remains of the North Wales copper mining industry. The water wheel is a first class example of using a single wheel for both pumping and winding. The wheel would turn continuously to pump water, but when a load of ore required winding a clutch was used to engage the drum at the side of the wheel.
Dorothea Pumping Engine, North Wales. The open pits of the Nantlle slate quarries were constantly worried by water. Many were sunk below river level and very few were naturally self draining, until long and expensive tunnels were driven.
Dorothea Quarry is not only one of the lowest quarries (i.e. in the bottom of the valley not part way up a hill), but it is also the deepest by quite a margin (as far as is known). In round figures, the sides of the quarry only extend 100 feet (30m) above the water, but the water is 500 feet (150m) deep.
When the quarry company needed better pumps around 1900 they tried electric pumps but did not like them. Instead they built the only 'Cornish Pumping Engine' in the Welsh Slate Industry and what is one of the last beam engine build in the country (it was completed in 1906). Electricity finally came to the quarries in the 1950s but the steam engine was retained and came to the rescue at least once when the electric pumps failed.
Following the closure of the quarry in 1971, the engine has survived mainly thanks to one or two local people, but is now being conserved, if not restored, using grant money.
The water in the foreground of the photograph is South Dorothea quarry. Dorothea quarry is behind the engine house. Both these quarries were under a common management in later years.
Windmill - Pary's Mountain, Anglesy. Pary's Mountain is one of the few large hills on Anglesy (Ynys Mons), but it is only a shadow of its former self. Enormous quantities of mineral ores have been extracted from the ground here for hundreds of years (and exploration still continues whenever the price of copper and zinc goes up). There is no high ground to catch water so water wheels were impossible, but there was plenty of wind, so a windmill was built on the highest point. The soundness of this decision was confirmed when in the past few years wind turbines have been erected in the surrounding fields.
Pary's mountain is crossed by a number of public footpaths and a visit is recommended. On a clear day the colours from the mineral stained ground are stunning and the scale of the workings (from 2 and 3 hundred years ago) cannot fail to impress.
The Snailbeach District Railway, Nr Minsterly, Salop. This railway was built to serve lead mines at Snailbeach but carried most traffic on the lower half of the line between a limestone quarry and the main road. Following WWII all three steam engines failed within a matter of months of each other, but traffic continued by loaded wagons being run by gravity and then being hauled back to the quarry using a Fordson tractor, twice a week.
After the majority of the railway line was lifted, the track bed was converted into a private road and the company continued to make money from the lorries driving up to the quarry.
Much track was left in place around the locomotive shed and mine sidings at Snailbeach village as seen here (May 1992)
Trapped between a road at the top of the hill and another at the bottom, rough ground has once again saved a unique machine. This is the Blaen y Cae Quarry 'Blondin' winder in North Wales.
Two inclined cylinders are fixed astride the twin winch drums, they drive an intermediate shaft via disc cranks and are reversible. The drive to each drum could be disengaged by clutches, they also had individual brakes.
Ropeway pylon, Consiton Slate Quarries, Cumbria (August 1992)
Please remember that many interesting sites are privately owned and do not have public access. Additionally, some of the photographs were taken underground. Never enter underground workings without the correct safety equipment and an experienced leader who knows the site in question.
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