Pantdreiniog quarry

The early history of the quarry is obscure, but it appears to have started around 1825,{{cite web |title=Particulars of a promising British enterprise |url=http://www.llechicymru.info/pantdreiniog.cymraeg.htm |work=Llechwefan |access-date=18 September 2019}} and was certainly working in 1845, when quarryman John Hughes of Maentwrog fell to his death into the pit, which was then {{convert|40|yards|m}} deep.{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Everett |title=Y Cenhadwr americanaidd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NN8GAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA158 |year=1845 |publisher=R. W. Roberts |page=1}} In 1860, owned by William Owen, the Pantdreiniog Slate Company produced 3,000 tons of slate,{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gsdIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA266 |title=Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2 |publisher=Geological Survey of Great Britain |first=Robert |last=Hunt |date=1860}} dropping to 1,372 tons produced by 30 men in 1864.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=60OWYCC2S94C&pg=PA26 |title=Traethawd ar lechfeini Sir Gaernarfon |first=John Owen |last=Griffith |publisher=Robert Isaac Jones |date=1864}} During the 1860s, the quarry expanded and took over the adjacent Coetmor Quarry.{{cite web |title=Bethesda: An urban character study |website=Academia |url=https://www.academia.edu/40045445 |first=Richard |last=Hayman |date=May 2017}} Sometime in the late 1860s the quarry closed.

In 1872, the quarry was re-opened by the Bangor and Pant-Dreiniog Slate Co. (Ltd.) and took on 50 workers. That year they produced 1,500 tons of finished slate.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wmo1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA32 |title=A Treatise on Slate and Slate Quarrying: Scientific, Practical, and Commercial |first=David Christopher |last=Davies |publisher=C. Lockwood and Company |date=1880}} In 1884, it was recorded as worked by the Pant Dreiniog Slate Company and producing blue, purple and red slates,{{cite book |title=Annales Des Mines: Mémoires |author=Vve Ch. Dunod |date=1884 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_xArAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA509}} but that was the only year the quarry worked between 1881 and 1886, leaving the quarrymen out of work and reliant on charity.{{cite news |title=Brynhafodwern and Pantdreiniog Slate Quarries Llanllechid |newspaper=The North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser for the Principality|date=1886-04-17|hdl = 10107/4452716 |hdl-access=free}}

In 1896, a major industrial dispute at the nearby Penrhyn quarry resulted in hundreds of quarrymen being locked out and left without work.{{cite web |url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/penrhyn-castle/features/penrhyn-castle-and-the-great-penrhyn-quarry-strike-1900-03 |title=Penrhyn Castle and the Great Penrhyn Quarry Strike, 1900–03 |publisher=The National Trust |access-date=25 July 2019}} Alderman William John Parry was determined to help. Parry had been one of the founders of the North Wales Quarrymen's Union in 1874, and was the union's first general secretary.{{cite DWB|id=s-PARR-JOH-1842 |title=Parry, William John (1842–1927), Labour leader, and author |access-date=12 September 2019}} He led a syndicate from South Wales that purchased Pantdreiniog{{cite news |title=Sale of a North Wales Slate Quarry |newspaper=Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent |date=1896-03-27 |hdl = 10107/3602801 |hdl-access=free}} and was appointed manager of the quarry. By October he had taken on 40 workers, announcing his intention to only employ married men in an effort to support the families of the strikers as well as the men.{{cite news |title=Thursdays Proceedings |newspaper=Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent |date=1896-10-02 |hdl = 10107/3603015 |hdl-access=free}} This venture failed, and in March 1900 Parry was forced to put the quarry up for sale.{{cite news |title=Advertising |newspaper=The North Wales Express |date=1900-03-23 |hdl = 10107/3567880 |hdl-access=free}} There was no successful bid at the auction, and the quarry company went into liquidation, throwing 106 men out of work.{{cite news |title=North Wales Quarrymen's Union |newspaper=North Wales Express |date=1905-05-05 |hdl = 10107/3570642 |hdl-access=free}}

On 22 November 1900, the continued friction between the quarrymen an owners at Penrhyn quarry resulted in another strike and lock out. This was the start of the "Great Strike of Penrhyn", which lasted for three years and was the longest dispute in British industrial history. 2,000 skilled workers were locked out and left without income. Parry saw an opportunity to provide work for the strikers at Pantdreiniog. In March 1901, he restarted the quarry as a worker's co-operative. In the first month of operation, the quarry turned a small profit and was able to pay wages of 32s 6p (equivalent to £{{inflation|UK|1.6|1901|2018}} in 2018) a week.{{cite news |title=Chwarel Pantdreiniog |newspaper=Baner ac Amserau Cymru |date=1901-04-24 |hdl = 10107/3837192 |hdl-access=free}} Slate produced here was shipped via the LNWR to Deganwy on the River Conwy.{{cite book |title=Stone |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YH05AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA276 |year=1903 |publisher=Stone Publishing Company |page=276}}

This initial attempt failed sometime in 1902, but in the summer 1903, with the Penrhyn strike still underway, Parry tried again. A new enterprise North Wales Quarries Ltd. was started, funded mainly by the North Wales Quarrymen's Union. The union contributed over £15,000 (£{{inflation|UK|15000|1903|2018|fmt=c}}) to purchase Pantdreiniog, along with the nearby Moel Faban and Tanybwlch quarries.{{cite news |title=The Cooperative Slate Quarries |newspaper=Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent |date=1904-08-26 |hdl = 10107/3606667 |hdl-access=free}} The quarries were together called the Bethesda Co-operative Quarries{{cite news |title=Chwarelau Cydweithiol Bethesda |newspaper=Tarian Y Gweithiwr |date=1905-02-02 |hdl = 10107/3122088 |hdl-access=free}} and Parry was appointed the Managing Director.{{cite news |title= |newspaper=The Pembroke County Guardian and Cardigan Reporter |date=1903-08-06 |hdl = 10107/4282872 |hdl-access=free}} The company was formally incorporated on 3 October 1903.{{cite news |title=Slate Prospecting |newspaper=Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent |date=1904-06-24 |hdl = 10107/3606585 |hdl-access=free}} Richard Bell, the MP for Derby was the chairman of the company.{{cite news |title=The Cooperative Slate Quarries |newspaper=Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent |date=1904-08-26 |hdl = 10107/3606667 |hdl-access=free}}

In November 1903, the Penrhyn strike ended and many quarrymen started to return to work there.{{cite news |url=https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/nostalgia/looking-back-great-strike-penrhyn-4698535 |title=Looking back at the Great Strike at Penrhyn Quarry |date=22 June 2013 |first=Eryl |last=Crump}}

Despite the good intentions, a rift developed between Parry and the union. Parry's terms of employment were seen as almost as draconian as those that cause the Great Strike at Penrhyn. The President of the union, Henry Jones, was among the quarrymen who refused to work at the co-operative under Parry. In his 1905 address to the union he said:

One of the greatest dangers of labour organisations was to fall into the hands of men ... who professed sympathy with the common people merely in order to attain personal ends. He would say nothing of the agreement which he and others refused to sign, and for which they had been discharged, because, as Mr W. J. Parry admitted, "they had not accepted the terms of the company. If the agreement was fair, then the whole history of the Union was of no avail.

Parry had locked out his quarrymen over the disagreement about their contracts and was generally held to be against the workers and the union.

By May 1906, Pantdreiniog was back at work,{{cite news |title=The Slate Trade |newspaper=Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent |date=1906-05-11 |hdl = 10107/3607430 |hdl-access=free}} but slate prices were falling, and in 1909 the company laid off 55 of its men.{{cite news |title=Unemployment in Carnarvonshire |newspaper=The North Wales Express |date=1909-05-14 |hdl = 10107/3572559 |hdl-access=free}} The quarry closed in October 1910.{{cite news |title=O Ben Twr Margwis |newspaper=Ye Brython Cymreig |date=1910-10-20 |hdl = 10107/3695961 |hdl-access=free}}

After the First World War, there was a brief boom in the slate industry as a large number of new houses were built in Britain under the Addison Act. In 1919, a new company the Pant Dreiniog Slate Quarry Company Ltd. was formed. It intended to rework material from the quarry's waste tips and pulverise it. The resulting slate dust would be formed into bricks and slabs. Initially only the grinding operation took place at the quarry, with the dust shipped to factories in Birmingham and Leigh where it was pressed into bricks. Because this process did not require the firing used to make traditional clay bricks, it was claimed to be a faster and cheaper alternative. As well as bricks, the company experimented with creating rubber goods, Portland cement, paint and pottery.{{cite news |title=Utilisation of Slate Waste |newspaper=The North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser for the Principality |date=1919-08-22 |hdl = 10107/4246075 |hdl-access=free}}

Yet again, William Parry was involved in the new company,{{cite news |title=Slate Quarry Waste |newspaper=The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard |date=1919-01-31 |hdl = 10107/3414563 |hdl-access=free}} called the North Wales Development Company. The company purchased a {{convert|30|in|mm}} Bradley pulverizing machine for grinding the waste and also attempted to build prefabricated houses using slate slabs in steel frame for the walls.{{cite book|author=David Gwyn|title=Welsh Slate: Archaeology and History of an Industry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HsbzCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA208|date=6 May 2015|publisher=RCAHMW|isbn=978-1-871184-55-6|pages=208–}} Parry died in 1927, and it appears that this final effort to work Pant Dreiniog for slate failed at or just before this date.

Finding enough space to tip the large amounts of waste slate is a problem for all slate quarries. Pantdreiniog was surrounded on three sides by the houses of Bethesda, so finding enough tipping space was particularly difficult. In the 1880s, they purchased a row of houses on Cilfodan Street and tipped over them. The high tips were held back by pack walls. After the quarry closed, the tips remained. They were considered both dangerous and a significant urban blight.{{cite journal |title=The Treatment of Slate Heaps |last=Crompton |first=C. T. |journal=The Town Planning Review |volume=37 |issue=4 |date=1967 |pages=291–304 |jstor=40102533 |doi=10.3828/tpr.37.4.p3482404r4467464 }}

Between 1957 and 1976 the Pantdreiniog pit was used as a landfill site.{{cite web |url=http://www.grwpcynefin.org/attachments/Geo-Environmental_Report_2_of_3.pdf |date=26 September 2016 |title=Historical Landfill Sites, 71 |publisher=Grwp Cynefin}} In the 1980s, the waste tips were removed and the quarry site was turned into open land.

Like most of the local slate quarries, Pantdreiniog had an extensive internal tramway system, of approximately {{TrackGauge|2ft}} gauge. Before 1900, a long incline ran up the east side of the pit, powered by a steam engine.{{cite map |publisher=Ordnance Survey |date=1889 |scale=1:2500 |title=County Series: Carnarvonshire}} Parry's enterprise of 1896 saw the quarry re-equipped and the incline was replaced by a lift on the north edge of the pit. Tramways ran east to the mill, then south to the waste tips above the town.{{cite map |publisher=Ordnance Survey |date=1900 |scale=1:2500 |title=County Series: Carnarvonshire}} The North Wales Quarries Ltd. further expanded the tramway network after they took over in 1903. They also purchased a steam locomotive from W.G. Bagnall to work the every lengthening tip line above Tan-y-Ffordd.{{cite map |publisher=Ordnance Survey |date=1914 |scale=1:2500 |title=County Series: Carnarvonshire}}

Two steam locomotives worked at the quarry, supplied by W.G. Bagnall. They were works number 1726 delivered in October 1903 and named Richard Bell, and works number 1863, delivered in November 1907, named J C Grey. Both were {{whyte|0-4-0|ST}} locomotives of the Mercedes class.{{cite book |first=Vic |last=Bradley |title=Industrial Locomotives of North Wales |publisher=Industrial Railway Society |year=1992}}

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{{Welsh Slate Quarries}}

Category:Slate mines in Gwynedd

Category:Industrial railways in Wales

Category:2 ft gauge railways in Wales