On Cribarth Mountain more than thirty limestone silica sand and rottenstone quarries were made accessible to the Swansea Canal (NPRN 34376) by eighteen inclined planes and seventeen kilometres of railway that were built between 1794 and the 1890s. The quarries are associated with a tramroad system (NPRN 34634). The main period of activity coincided with the boom in the local anthracite iron industry (1887- circa 1860). Silica sand, that was used for furnace linings was worked in quarries around the mountain top. Rottenstone, an impure limestone shale that was used in the polishing of copper and tinplate was also obtained from the mountain top. There are remains of limekilns on and around the mountain.

Source: A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of the Swansea Region, by Stephen Hughes and Paul Reynolds, AIA, 1989

Claire Parry, RCAHMW, 6 September, 2011.