1. Gwylfa Hiraethog, Denbighshire
Bit of an archive explore this. Pictures taken using film camera. This ex-hunting lodge was abandoned in the 1950’s. Isolated high on Denbigh Moors, it can be spotted whilst driving past the Sportsman’s’ Arms Inn between Bylchau and Pentrefoelas. Once said to have been the highest inhabited house in Wales, former war Prime Minister Lloyd George addressed a large crowd here from the balcony just after it was built in 1908. The lodge replaced an earlier wooden chalet that had been imported in prefabricated sections from Norway in the early 1890s. Before it descended into rack and ruin it looked like this, circa 1953:
The first of my three pictures (the colour one) was taken in 1991.The two black and white pictures date from around 1999. The deterioration is quite dramatic. Now today it is nothing more than a pile of rubble.
2. Two Piano House, Amlwch, Angelsey
Spotted on the way to the Bromide works at Amlwch. Not worth a report in its own right but good for a few pictures.
One piano:
Sort of plays still...
Two piano:
3. Cwmystwyth Lead Mines, Ceredigion
Considered by some to be an eyesore and a reminder of the damage and the danger on landscape and man. The large tin finishing mill used to stand, red and rusting, set dramatically against the grey heaps and yellowing hillsides before it was dismantled, each piece numbered for reconstruction. Many other buildings scattered the valley, all were in a perilous state back in 1989 when I visited. Twenty-five years later some have all but vanished.
There is evidence of mining at Cwmystwyth from the Bronze Age and reaching a peak in the late 19th century – Cwmystwyth being one of the countries most productive mines, all the up to early part of the 20th century. It is said that the average age at death of the miners in Cwmystwyth was 32 years due to lead poisoning. It has taken many decades, after the mining finished, for fish to return to the poisoned waters of the river Ystwyth that flow at the foot of the mines.
Another archive report, shot on film.
Bit of an archive explore this. Pictures taken using film camera. This ex-hunting lodge was abandoned in the 1950’s. Isolated high on Denbigh Moors, it can be spotted whilst driving past the Sportsman’s’ Arms Inn between Bylchau and Pentrefoelas. Once said to have been the highest inhabited house in Wales, former war Prime Minister Lloyd George addressed a large crowd here from the balcony just after it was built in 1908. The lodge replaced an earlier wooden chalet that had been imported in prefabricated sections from Norway in the early 1890s. Before it descended into rack and ruin it looked like this, circa 1953:
The first of my three pictures (the colour one) was taken in 1991.The two black and white pictures date from around 1999. The deterioration is quite dramatic. Now today it is nothing more than a pile of rubble.
2. Two Piano House, Amlwch, Angelsey
Spotted on the way to the Bromide works at Amlwch. Not worth a report in its own right but good for a few pictures.
One piano:
Sort of plays still...
Two piano:
3. Cwmystwyth Lead Mines, Ceredigion
Considered by some to be an eyesore and a reminder of the damage and the danger on landscape and man. The large tin finishing mill used to stand, red and rusting, set dramatically against the grey heaps and yellowing hillsides before it was dismantled, each piece numbered for reconstruction. Many other buildings scattered the valley, all were in a perilous state back in 1989 when I visited. Twenty-five years later some have all but vanished.
There is evidence of mining at Cwmystwyth from the Bronze Age and reaching a peak in the late 19th century – Cwmystwyth being one of the countries most productive mines, all the up to early part of the 20th century. It is said that the average age at death of the miners in Cwmystwyth was 32 years due to lead poisoning. It has taken many decades, after the mining finished, for fish to return to the poisoned waters of the river Ystwyth that flow at the foot of the mines.
Another archive report, shot on film.
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