Report - Wrysgan Slate Mine. June 2013

[Degenatron]

The first report from what was a grey, cloudy but strangely beautiful day in the mountains around Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Some History first.

Wrysgan is situated above Llyn Tanygrisiau 1390 feet above sea level it is a
remote and inaccessible site. It was opened in the 1830's, the first mill was
built in 1854, there was however a second mill built on a lower level in 1865. In
1872 an impressive incline and short tunnel above Llyn Tanygrisiau was built
This gave direct access to the Ffestin
iog railway system. It was built as a
normal double tracked gravity balanced incline, however, due to the slight
gradient at the bottom, wagons frequently
stalled on it. It was soon converted
into a single track powered incline which used various forms of propulsion.
The tiny Llyn y Wrysgan proved to
be too small to keep the water wheels
turning and in 1890 a steam engine was
installed on the lower mill, another
drove the underground incline serving the levels. Steam proved to be costly
and a 50hp gas engine was installed for mill drive, with uphaulage from the
lower levels by a water balance along side
the original exit incline. This incline
was later driven by an old car engine. Electricity was bought to the mine in the
1920s, the incline was then powered by
borrowing the electric motor from the
mill and connecting it to the haulage drum each time a journey of empty
wagons needed to be raised. Finally a lorry engine was used for this purpose.
The mine was worked by a dozen men during the 1930s and finally closed in
the 1950s.

After, what seems to be becoming a regular journey to Blaenau Ffestiniog, myself and trancentral got our wellies on (no footwear fails this time) and headed towards the incline.

Trancentral looks at the incline we are about to climb. The tunnel at the top is in the top right of the picture. (this was took on my phone because I could not be bothered getting the camera out yet).

We reach the tunnel at the top but its time to briefly stop.

Trancentral Celebrates our milestone with a quick rolly.

Looking back down the tunnel

The remains of the winch mechanism greets you as you exit the tunnel.

Is this the old car engine that once powered the winch after the steam engine was removed?.

TC looks over to Cwmorthin

The remains of the old mine buildings. Time to go underground

Whats in here?.

Darkness

and a bloody huge chamber

85w HID torch really comes into its own in places like this.

The view looking down into the chamber. There is nothing to get an idea of scale in the photo. Lets just say its massive.

Off to the left is a rope to follow if you are braver and more equipped than we where.

Back outside again and a little further up is another chamber that has collapsed at some point.

Through another short tunnel we find several chambers interconnected. All have vent holes at the top.

Looking back towards where we entered

This one had a big square window

This one had a small window

and finally this one had a rectangular one.


After this we headed back out and further up the mountain looking for more of the mine. We didn't find any more workings of Wrysgan but after quite a long trek through some fairly extreme mountain weather, we stumbled upon somewhere else which will feature in its own report very soon.

Thanks for reading.