- National Slate Museum
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Entrance to the museum
The great water wheel inside the museumThe National Slate Museum (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.
History
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, which uses part of the building as its workshops.
The museum reopened after receiving a £1.6 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and now has innovative displays featuring Victorian era 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. The waterwheel was constructed in 1870 by De Winton of Caernarfon and is 50ft 5ins in diameter, 5ft 3ins wide and was built around a 12in axle.[1] Close to the museum is the partly restored Vivian incline, a gravity balance incline where loaded slate wagons haul empty wagons back up.
References
- ^ Plaque on the wall of the museum
External links
- National Slate Museum
- The National Slate Museum at Gathering the Jewels
- Map sources for National Slate Museum
Museums and art galleries in Wales National Museum Wales History Isca Augusta · Roman Baths Museum
Galleries and art Industry Bersham Ironworks · Blaenavon Ironworks · Cefn Coed Colliery Museum · Kidwelly Industrial Museum · Llechwedd Slate Caverns · Newtown Textile Museum · Pierhead Building · South Wales Miners' Museum · Sygun Copper Mine
Military Monmouth Museum · South Wales Borderers Museum · Museum of the Welsh Soldier
Local history Abergavenny Museum · Brecknock Museum · Cardiff Story · Carmarthenshire County Museum · Ceredigion Museum · Chepstow Museum · Llancaiach Fawr · Llandrindod Wells Museum · Llanidloes Museum · Newport Museum · Parc Howard Museum · Powysland Museum · Scolton Manor · Swansea Museum
Motoring Llangollen Motor Museum · Pembrokeshire Motor Museum · Pendine Museum of Speed
Railways Maritime Holyhead Maritime Museum · National Coracle Centre
Sport Categories:- Welsh building and structure stubs
- United Kingdom museum stubs
- European Route of Industrial Heritage Anchor Points
- History of Gwynedd
- National museums of Wales
- Slate industry in Wales
- Industry museums in the United Kingdom
- Mining museums in Wales
- Museums in Gwynedd
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