A large and well-trodden tourist mine I did while exploring some of the smaller quarries/mines in the area (Rhiwbach, Blaen-y-Cwm, Cwt-y-Bugail).
For history see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenofferen_quarry
Briefly, it started as a quarry then expanded underground in the mid 1800s, with production finally ceasing in 1999, leaving an extended network of tunnels and enormous caverns.
Slate is still being extracted today for use as aggregate by ‘untopping’ surface caverns and from the waste tips so there’s a certain amount of activity, but not near the interesting bits.
The approach. The best, if not the nearest, place to park is outside the (modern) Cwt-y-Bugail Welsh Slate quarry since all the local attractions, including Maenofferen, are downhill from there.
The pictures are from two visits in July 2019 and Sept 2020.
Walking in round the Rhiwbach tramway one passes a couple of reservoirs supplying the Maenofferen mills.
General view of the surface remains from about half-way down the incline at the end of the tramway.
The large processing sheds on the right were originally powered by a waterwheel, and the stumps of piers supporting the overhead water channel can still be seen marching in from the left.
The mill was electrically powered from 1911 onwards, initially by (water) turbines.
The building with green tarpaulin on the left is the surface winding station, currently being restored.
I won’t add pictures of the sheds and other buildings since these have been well-covered, see e.g HugieD’s recent post
https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threa...enau-ffestiniog-north-wales-july-2020.124432/
But it’s well worth a look as an example of an ‘integrated’ slate mill with a fair amount of equipment still left, and recognisably the same place as shown in old photos.
OK, just one picture of the power house then because it has/had the electrics mounted on enamelled slate panels.
When writing slates and decorative slate fire surrounds went out of fashion, electrical mounts provided another source of income for the quarries - you sometimes find slate-mounted electrics in old houses.
The problem with Maenofferen is that it’s next to a public footpath, so anyone can wander in and it’s getting quite trashed.
Indeed there was a recent incident of scrappers burning cabling underground, presumably to get at the copper cores.
This is the reason I waited a while before a revisit, to give the fumes a chance to dissipate.
So eschewing the mill-level tunnels and heading straight down, this is an example of the sort of mess you find - the place is littered with piles of charred cabling.
While the smell has mostly gone - no worse than some inner city derp anyway - the fumes have condensed as oily black soot all over the shop.
But mines are filthy holes anyway and if you hadn’t been down before you might not even notice that some areas are looking a bit grubby.
The following pictures are grouped by type rather than in any particular order.
Lots of unphotographably huge spaces which you really have to see in person, although they’re often part-filled with slate waste.
This is one that was small enough to light up with my torch.
And then we have tunnels heading out across chasms…
…interior inclines and tunnels under them…
…and towering walls of stacked waste.
Below, a winding engine at the top of an incline.
I don’t know much about mines or electrical stuff so I wasn’t sure what the dipping plates were for, other than being some sort of control mechanism worked by a lever.
Looking it up later, this is basically the throttle for the winder.
The sort of slip-ring (or wound-rotor) induction motor used here works best with a high resistance across the rotor coils when rotating slowly, and no resistance when up to speed.
The three plates, one for each phase winding of the rotor, were gradually lowered into the electrolyte tubs to get the thing going and withdrawn to stop it.
I expect there’s more to it than that but it’s a smoothly varying rheostat, often called a ‘liquid resistance’.
Some weirdo must go around mines making little collections of stuff for other weirdos to photograph.
Plenty of carts lying around.
Many pools, not all of them on the lowest level, one of which (not shown) had old boots at the bottom.
Stairage
Fanage
Compressors, tanks for compressed air, one of several air-hoists and a little air-powered Eimco muck shoveller.
Another winding station at the top of one of the lower inclines.
Heading back out I had a look in the surface winding station although it’s currently cluttered by scaffolding.
The drums were driven by a motor on the platform at the back, with a spare drum in pieces on the left.
There’s a liquid resistance setup in here as well (not shown).
Walking back past the reservoir after a long day under t’mill.
This is a fairly straightforward, if quite time consuming, place to traverse once you’ve got the hang of it.
Personally I prefer doing this sort of thing alone, heading in without knowing much and finding my own way - feels more like exploring.
The downside is that I wasted time following tunnels that went nowhere and probably saw much less than half of what’s down there.
For example I only did two of the deeper internal inclines, walking past numerous tunnel entrances without even going in.
Maybe some miney type who knows the place well could tell me if there’s more stuff, as in winding stations, to find - not just more huge voids, splendid though they are, I’ve seen enough of those.
For history see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenofferen_quarry
Briefly, it started as a quarry then expanded underground in the mid 1800s, with production finally ceasing in 1999, leaving an extended network of tunnels and enormous caverns.
Slate is still being extracted today for use as aggregate by ‘untopping’ surface caverns and from the waste tips so there’s a certain amount of activity, but not near the interesting bits.
The approach. The best, if not the nearest, place to park is outside the (modern) Cwt-y-Bugail Welsh Slate quarry since all the local attractions, including Maenofferen, are downhill from there.
The pictures are from two visits in July 2019 and Sept 2020.
Walking in round the Rhiwbach tramway one passes a couple of reservoirs supplying the Maenofferen mills.
General view of the surface remains from about half-way down the incline at the end of the tramway.
The large processing sheds on the right were originally powered by a waterwheel, and the stumps of piers supporting the overhead water channel can still be seen marching in from the left.
The mill was electrically powered from 1911 onwards, initially by (water) turbines.
The building with green tarpaulin on the left is the surface winding station, currently being restored.
I won’t add pictures of the sheds and other buildings since these have been well-covered, see e.g HugieD’s recent post
https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threa...enau-ffestiniog-north-wales-july-2020.124432/
But it’s well worth a look as an example of an ‘integrated’ slate mill with a fair amount of equipment still left, and recognisably the same place as shown in old photos.
OK, just one picture of the power house then because it has/had the electrics mounted on enamelled slate panels.
When writing slates and decorative slate fire surrounds went out of fashion, electrical mounts provided another source of income for the quarries - you sometimes find slate-mounted electrics in old houses.
The problem with Maenofferen is that it’s next to a public footpath, so anyone can wander in and it’s getting quite trashed.
Indeed there was a recent incident of scrappers burning cabling underground, presumably to get at the copper cores.
This is the reason I waited a while before a revisit, to give the fumes a chance to dissipate.
So eschewing the mill-level tunnels and heading straight down, this is an example of the sort of mess you find - the place is littered with piles of charred cabling.
While the smell has mostly gone - no worse than some inner city derp anyway - the fumes have condensed as oily black soot all over the shop.
But mines are filthy holes anyway and if you hadn’t been down before you might not even notice that some areas are looking a bit grubby.
The following pictures are grouped by type rather than in any particular order.
Lots of unphotographably huge spaces which you really have to see in person, although they’re often part-filled with slate waste.
This is one that was small enough to light up with my torch.
And then we have tunnels heading out across chasms…
…interior inclines and tunnels under them…
…and towering walls of stacked waste.
Below, a winding engine at the top of an incline.
I don’t know much about mines or electrical stuff so I wasn’t sure what the dipping plates were for, other than being some sort of control mechanism worked by a lever.
Looking it up later, this is basically the throttle for the winder.
The sort of slip-ring (or wound-rotor) induction motor used here works best with a high resistance across the rotor coils when rotating slowly, and no resistance when up to speed.
The three plates, one for each phase winding of the rotor, were gradually lowered into the electrolyte tubs to get the thing going and withdrawn to stop it.
I expect there’s more to it than that but it’s a smoothly varying rheostat, often called a ‘liquid resistance’.
Some weirdo must go around mines making little collections of stuff for other weirdos to photograph.
Plenty of carts lying around.
Many pools, not all of them on the lowest level, one of which (not shown) had old boots at the bottom.
Stairage
Fanage
Compressors, tanks for compressed air, one of several air-hoists and a little air-powered Eimco muck shoveller.
Another winding station at the top of one of the lower inclines.
Heading back out I had a look in the surface winding station although it’s currently cluttered by scaffolding.
The drums were driven by a motor on the platform at the back, with a spare drum in pieces on the left.
There’s a liquid resistance setup in here as well (not shown).
Walking back past the reservoir after a long day under t’mill.
This is a fairly straightforward, if quite time consuming, place to traverse once you’ve got the hang of it.
Personally I prefer doing this sort of thing alone, heading in without knowing much and finding my own way - feels more like exploring.
The downside is that I wasted time following tunnels that went nowhere and probably saw much less than half of what’s down there.
For example I only did two of the deeper internal inclines, walking past numerous tunnel entrances without even going in.
Maybe some miney type who knows the place well could tell me if there’s more stuff, as in winding stations, to find - not just more huge voids, splendid though they are, I’ve seen enough of those.
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