Llechwedd Slate Miners Tramway – taking a ride back in time

John W Greaves versus King Solomon

Llechwedd slate caverns are products of the Welsh slate rush during the reigns of George IV and William IV when fortunes were lost easier than they were found by digging holes in Snowdonia.  John W Greaves spent £25,000 in mining costs before striking the Merioneth Old Vein with which he proceeded to roof every continent with his slate tiles.

Tourists travelling on the Slate Miners Tramway

His resultant underground quarries are Europe’s unique rival to the spectacular King Solomon’s mines beneath Jerusalem, and they may now be explored from the comfort of a modern carriage on one of the earliest miners’ tramways.

An engine used for carrying huge slate slabs

The Industrial Revolution

It is a ride straight into the Industrial Revolution and a mining technique used 3,000 years earlier in Israel. Here, for the first time, the outside world can experience something of the faith and the triumph of the tough God-fearing quarrymen of Blaenau Ffestiniog who honeycombed their mountains with 130 miles of tunnels linking hundreds of cathedral-like caverns.

Open to the public

The slate mines of Merioneth remained a mystery to all but the quarrymen until 1972 when a half mile level section was opened to the public. Within nine months it was awarded both the Wales Tourist Board’s “Festival of Wales Trophy” and the British Tourist Authority’s “Come to Britain Trophy” as the most outstanding tourist enterprise with which Britain entered the European Common Market. It is a project unaffected by weather for you can drive right up to a former dressing mill which has been converted into a passenger terminal.

Quarrymen working on a rock face

100 Feet Deep

Soon after entering the tunnel, aboard a battery-driven train, passengers will see abortive trial excavations to left and right. As it takes a right-hand bend the train emerges for a short period on a shelf which looks out upon a modern opencast quarry. Proceeding into the main tunnel you arrive at a succession of caverns, all on the right. The first is a flood –lit bowl, 100 feet deep in which men are still working at the base.

Slate quarryman cutting slate tiles by hand

A whole lifetime in the slate mines

The train stops at the next cavern where a guide, who has spent the whole of his working life in the mines, demonstrates the use of early equipment and as your eyes grow accustomed to the dark gloom, he points out life-sized dummies in working positions on the rock face. The third cavern on the tour has been worked out to the open at the top resulting in some very dramatic lighting effects.

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