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Minllyn Slate and Slab Quarry

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NPRN310049
Map ReferenceSH81SE
Grid ReferenceSH8514513943
Unitary (Local) AuthorityGwynedd
Old CountyMerioneth
CommunityMawddwy
Type Of SiteSLATE QUARRY
Period19th Century
Description
Minllyn slate and slab quarry is located above Dinas Mawddwy on the west side of the Dyfi valley. It is a nineteenth-century slate and slab quarry of several phases. It is not shown on the 1832 Ordnance Survey drawing of Llanerfyl. The processing mill is said to have been built in 1845. After 1856 Edmund Buckley invested in local quarries but the Minllyn slate quarry business failed in 1871. Output and investment increased after the formation in 1872 of the Carlyle Slate and Slab Company, when sixty men were employed, and continued in production until 1925.

The earliest workings that can be identified at Minllyn are underground workings of the mid 19th century (nprn 527504, 527505, 527490, 527492) with associated tips (nprn 527477, 527491, 527493). These levels have associated tips, the variable size of which suggests their relative success. Formerly underground workings were expanded into open deep pits (nprn 527472, 527485). A processing mill (nprn 527460) was built immediately downhill of the pits. This was powered by a steam engine, evidence for which is a surviving angine and boiler house and stack (nprn 527466, 527467). A pipe (nprn 527468) brought water down from a reservoir (nprn 527530) on the steep hill north of the works, and which seems also to have been supplied by Llyn Foeldinas (nprn 527420), which is dammed on its downhill side and appears to have been a natural lake converted to a reservoir. A line of pillars (nprn 527464) on the west side of the engine house was apparently to support compressed air pipes.

Other features on the site include a stone-lined tramway tunnel (nprn 527462) that brought stone out from the lower pit, and which cuts the line of an earlier short inclined plane (nprn 527474) that was used in an earlier phase of the pit working. Another inclined plane (nprn 527475) brought down stone from the upper pit to the mill area. At its summit is a winding house (nprn 527479). A further short incline (nprn 527486) brought stone down from a smaller quarry above the main pit, and for which the winding house is less well preserved (nprn 527501).

Recorded as part of RCAHMW Uplands Initiative Project, R Hayman, H&H, 08/01/2013.