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

New houses were built to accommodate the miner's families, and it always amazed me how a lot of the houses sat at the very foot of the slate mountains, and even the garden fences were made of large slabs of slate. My grandparent's house was one such house, it was built in the 1890's and remained in the family for over 100 years, an end of terrace house, with a mountain for a backdrop. Sheep frequently walked up and down the streets, wandering in and out of gardens, in fact they still do, it is as though the town and the landscape are one.

All around you can see the visible signs of the slate industry, inclines running steeply upwards to where the slate waggons would be loaded with their cargo, and in places there are the remains of quarryworkers houses. The town has preserved a lot of it's industrial history, and restoration work to quarrymens cottages has been undertaken. The Victorian buildings have also been preserved. Blaenau once had in excess of twenty pubs, and I would imagine they were well used, with thousands of work weary men letting their hair down on a Saturday night. Just think of the sound of the miners boots, hundreds of them, thundering down the streets from the quarries after finishing the days work.

A moment in time, some of the men at their quarry, taken between 1940/50

Life expectancy for some slate quarriers and their families could be short, poor diet and the damp climate conspired to take those who were the weakest. Many of the men developed lung diseases, again, not helped by the climate, but also compounded by the nature of the work, slate dust was injurious to health. Safety at work was not a priority for the mine owners, and there were many accidents in the quarries, it was part and parcel of life, you wanted work, you took what was offered.

Today the town relies mainly on tourism for it's income, and it is a really fascinating place to visit, on a rainy day the tops of mountains disappear into the low cloud. On a sunny day, you can see beyond the slate and granite mountains, way into the hills, and if you explore around some of the town's outer side roads and footpaths, you will come across rushing streams dotted about the hillsides, in warm weather you may walk up into

Go To Page: 1 2 3