National Slate Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Slate Museum, which was previously known as the Welsh Slate Museum, is located at Gilfach Ddu in the 19th century workshops of the now disused Dinorwic slate quarry, within the Padarn Country Park, Llanberis, Gwynedd. The museum is an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage and part of National Museum Wales.
These workshops, which served all the needs of the quarry and its locomotives, were built in 1870 on land created from the continuous tipping of spoil from the adjacent Vivian Quarry, and as a replacement for the store sheds which were previously sited there. Rail access to the works was by both 2 ft (610 mm) gauge (the quarry gauge) and 4 ft (1,219 mm) gauge (that of the Padarn Railway which carried the slate from the quarry to Port Dinorwic). Rails also entered the main yard through the main entrance.
The museum is now connected to the nearby village of Llanberis by the Llanberis Lake Railway.
The museum reopened after receiving a £1.6 million grant from the National Lottery Fund and now has innovative displays featuring Victorian slateworkers' cottages that once stood at Tanygrisiau, near Blaenau Ffestiniog. They were taken down stone by stone and re-erected here. As well as many interesting exhibits, it has the multi-media display, To Steal a Mountain, showing the lives and work of the men who quarried slate here.
The museum also has the largest working waterwheel in mainland Britain, which is available for viewing via several walkways. Close to the museum is the partly restored Vivian incline, a gravity balance incline where loaded slate wagons haul empty wagons back up.
[edit] External links
- National Slate Museum
- Map sources for National Slate Museum
|
||||||||
 |
This article about a Welsh building or structure is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
 This article related to a museum in the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
