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Not Bill Bryson's favourite Welsh town, Blaenau Ffestiniog!

© Lynda Langford

In Bill Bryson's fascinating book "Notes from a small Island", he mentions his stop at the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, in the county of Gwynedd (pronounced Gwyneth). Unfortunately, he visited the town on a Sunday, in the rain, not the best time for a visit to Blaenau, and I had to smile when I read his sobering and yet somewhat humorous account of his "escape" from the town! Wales on a Sunday is notoriously quiet anyway, with most families at home together, and if you add torrential rain to the equation then a sense of gloom is usually the result! So I decided to write this article to try to give an insight into what makes Blaenau Ffestiniog a special place.

Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town which I consider to be unique, of course I am biased, my father was born there, and his father before him. It is situated in the heart of Snowdonia, in the county of Gwynedd, previously the old county of Merionethshire. Although the town is dominated by mountains of slate waste, the setting is beautiful, and surrounded by the mountains of Snowdonia. Before the quarries opened, the main source of income came from farming.

Travelling into Blaenau from Betwys-y-Coed is quite an experience, you drive down from the Crimea Pass, and come into the town on a very steep winding road. The panorama spread out before you is of a town surrounded by mountains of blue/grey slate, I would imagine it is a little like landing on another planet, for those who are making their first visit.

Around the late 1700's, slate mining was small scale, but soon there were new quarries springing up as the potential for utilizing slate was realized, huge blocks were mined which had to be cut and split. Then the bigger operations sprang up, and slate in large quantities was shipped to Europe and beyond from the nearby sea port of Porthmadog, a town which soon gained a reputation for building Schooners, those rather beautiful and elegant looking ships, the last ship to leave Porthmadog with it's load of slate sailed in 1946, and I doubt it was a Schooner! These days you can take the train from Blaenau to Porthmadog, and appreciate the views as you sit in comfort.

As the industry expanded, so did the town, with an influx of men looking for work, they came from not just Wales but England and Scotland and Ireland. It was boom time, and there was a good spirit of comradeship among the men who worked and lived closely together, the working week started on a Monday morning, some men had to walk up to ten miles to their own place of work, and remain there until Saturday morning, living in communal barrack accommodation with their fellow miners. Because of the remoteness of some of the quarries, the only entertainment the men had was to talk or sing together. In fact the talk became so eager that debating societies were formed, and I remember all of the men in my fathers family loved to talk!

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