View SW across Pen-yr-Orsedd slate quarries to the Nantlle Ridge, Wales, UK, showing pits, pylons, stays & cables of aerial ropeways (Blondin cranes).
View SW across Pen-yr-Orsedd slate quarries to the Nantlle Ridge, Wales, UK, showing pylons, stays & cables of aerial ropeways (Blondins, Blondin cranes) used to winch slate from the deep quarry pits. The quarries began in 1816 as hillside galleries but main workings in deep pits 1862-1979 & again in the 1980s-2000. This photo was taken in 1999. The in-situ Blondins with their pylons, lifting & control mechanisms, stay anchors, wheeled winding blocks, engine houses & power units are scheduled monuments. Initially steam powered, then by Bruce Peebles electrical equipment of 1906. The Blondins gradually went out of use (declared unsafe in 1974?) & a lorry road was built down into the working pit in the 1980s. The Nantlle Valley Slate Quarry Landscape is part of The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales which became the UK's 32nd UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 July 2021.
Size: 4961px × 3780px
Location: Dorothea Quarry, Nantlle Valley, Penygroes, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales, UK
Photo credit: © Mick Sharp / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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