Let's Have A Day Out - To Llanberis

 

Leaving Betws-y-Coed on the A5 takes us up firstly to the rugged scenery of Capel Curig where we find numerous parties of walkers and climbers before taking a left turn onto the A4086 passing Lake Llyn Peris before coming to Llyn Padarn, twin lakes which have cut through the mountain range creating the Llanberis Pass. Arriving at Llanberis, an area noted for its rugged beauty and scarred with numerous slate mines, scores of visitors meet in this impressive place steeped in history yet still retaining an air of tranquillity. Packed with enough attractions to keep visitors busy for weeks, from here there are options to ascend Snowdonia, drive round the ginormous bulk of Snowdonia’s central massif or catch a train up the summit of the highest mountain in England and Wales. Over three thousand feet high, you travel on Britain's only rack and pinion railway to Hafod Eryri, the stunning new visitor centre at the Summit of Snowdon. Since 1896 people, regardless of age or fitness, have claimed the peak of Snowdon as one of their lifetime achievements. If walking, there are six recommended paths, all classed as 'hard, strenuous walks' and you should allow at least 6 - 8 hours to get there and back, even if you're pretty fit.

The National Slate Museum

Lakeside Padarn Country Park, shadowed by towering slate mountains, is the National Slate Museum housed in the Industrial Victorian Workshops of the enormous Dinorwig slate quarry above it. The workshops catered for all the repair and maintenance work demanded by a quarry which once employed well over 3,000 men. From strikes and suffering, to craftsmanship and community, this is an unique opportunity to glimpse the lives of the slate workers and their families as The National Slate Museum is not so much a museum but a pocket of history. Every day there are an array of talks and demonstrations on offer giving you a real insight into quarry life. Watching a film with 3-D glasses informs us of how by the 1890s the Welsh slate industry employed approximately 17,000 workers and produced almost 500,000 tonnes of slate a year, around a third of all roofing slate used in the world in the late 19th century. Then we have Slate-splitting demonstrations by craftsmen revealing the skills and artistry of generations of quarry workers as craftsmen slice the slate in front of your eyes in the workshop. Travel through time in Fron Haul and go inside a row of four quarrymen's houses, including the Chief Engineer's House and the Quarrymen's Houses, re-erected stone by stone at the Museum, which recapture significant periods from the slate industry. Here we also see the water powered machinery in motion that made the tools for quarrying slate with the magnificent Waterwheel that gives them life - the largest on the British mainland. Nearby the Llanberis lake railway runs along the northerly shore of Llyn Padarn with the main station located in the Padarn Country Park but the journey can be broken at Cei Llydan to capture the spectacular views. The tiny locomotives used on the line have all seen service in Dinorwig Quarries at one time or another where they once hauled slate wagons in the quarry.

Occupying a lofty, lonely spot overlooking the waters of Llyn Padarn at the base of the Llanberis Pass, native-built Dolbadarn Castle was once a vital link in the defences of the ancient kingdom of Gwynedd. Now a Grade I listed building, most likely constructed by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great) in the late 12th or early 13th century, it stood watch over the strategic route inland from Caernarfon to the upper Conwy Valley. Today the site is dominated by the sturdy round tower, which historian Richard Avent considers "the finest surviving example of a Welsh round tower", very different in style to the unmortared slate slabs which make up the castle's curtain walls. Standing 50ft/15.2m high, the tower's design was probably inspired by that of similar fortresses built by Llywelyn's rivals in the borderlands of the southern Marches.

The pioneering Dinorwig Quarry Hospital is now a museum housing some of the original equipment from the 1800s such as a restored Ward and Operating Theatre, original X-Ray Machine and more. This old hospital was for the men who worked at the Dinorwig Quarry in the 19th and 20th centuries. The idea was to have a hospital close to their place of work so they could get back to work as soon as possible after they received treatment. With over 3,000 workers in the Dinorwig quarry and there were a lot of accidents - broken bones, lost fingers, crush injuries and worse. The Dinorwig hospital remained until the coming of the NHS in the 1950s. It became a first aid post before closing along with the quarry in the 1960s. Unfortunately, when it was closed everything was removed but fortunately, someone had the foresight to keep lots of the equipment at the county archives and they were able to recreate the quarry hospital and open it to the public.

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