A walk from Ynys-y-Pandy slate mill to the Gorseddau quarry...

On 20th March 2019, I walked alone to the Gorseddau slate quarry, along the horse drawn tramway. It is only about 3 miles but was incredibly interesting. The history of the quarry can be read here...

Brief history

My walk starts from the majestic ruin that is the slate mill at Ynys-y-Pandy. Beautifully built with arched windows, a false chimney and room for the 26ft water wheel and multiple cutting saws.

The power to drive the massive cutting and planing tools was via a water wheel nearly 30 feet across. A reservoir was constructed further up the valley to supply the water via various feeder routes including what must have been a raised water trough to get water to enter the mill above the level of the stream.

Here you can see the slate mill and the tramways curving towards it. I suspect that the slate arrived on the lower one which is to the left of the raised one and the finished products came out on the raised tramway, ready to be pulled by horse and four to six little wagons down to Porthmadog.

A wide angle shot showing the tramway heading north towards the quarry.

This would have been a fixed bridge over the steam from the reservoir.

One of a few cuttings encountered.

Some farm buildings next to the tramway.

Some line shaft machinery is evident.

Wagon tyres for farm vehicles maybe.

This was thrilling, to find a couple of lengths of old tramway rails. The head is on the left and the thin web would have just slotted into chairs with a corresponding slot. There were no plated joints on this line, where two rails met, they sat in a chair twice as wide - so simple but so clever.

You can see the rails and I wondered if that was a wagon frame.

You can clearly make out the tramway, even in the mist.

A couple of very atmospheric ruins are at the side of the tramway quite near the reservoir.

Remains of quite a large and important house, possibly to do with the quarry boss.

All the pieces were there of the cast iron fireplace.

Another cutting.

This building was right next to the tramway and has tow large stable parts to it, possibly for the horses if they couldn`t go down before night fall.

Large stone slabs used to get over another stream.

This part had to be blasted out of the rock.

And then you come to this incredible retaining wall, the like I`ve never seen in over 40years of poking about mines and quarrys!

It curves protectively over the tramway where the tips are closest to it. A work colleague came-up with the idea that any large lumps of slate that rolled down, would actually roll right over the tramway and wouldn`t cause any damage to rails, men or horses.

The start of the massive incline railway, gravity worked so full wagons coming down would pull empty ones up to the top. Always a dangerous procedure with all the responsibility on the brake man.