High up the forested slopes above Llyn y Gader, and just below
the Bwlch-y-Ddwy-elor ridge, lies the small quarry of Bwlch Ddeilior. There is
little information available on this remote site, which is almost (now) obliterated from
view by hundreds of forestry conifers. Indeed, To the forestry people it is probably just
an inconvenient hole in the ground that they had to fence off.
To reach the quarry involves a long trek through the maze of paths within the Beddgelert Forest
/ Coed Beddgelert - but even once close to the site, it is possible to walk straight past
without noticing its existence, such is the density of forestry around it.
![* [Pic 1] Bwlch Ddeilior Quarry - Main pit and cutting (May 1990) *](gfxpics02/bwlch-ddeilior-90-01.jpg)
[Pic 1] Bwlch Ddeilior Quarry - Main pit and cutting (May 1990)
For information on Bwlch Ddeilior i
am (yet again) indebted to Alun John Richards and his book 'The Slate Regions of North and Mid Wales'* which
states that the quarry had an output (in 1883) of 160 tons with 7 men, material was carted to
Caernarvon, and it was a small pit accessed by a cutting with possible vestiges of a wheelpit and
a dressing shed. Any other sources of information are rare and add nothing else - which is typical of
such a small site.
I would add to this by saying the
pit had 3 seperate entrances (each of different periods) with one being an adit (see Pic 1, above, showing the pit with the adit
at pit bottom) located in the floor of the pit - though this may never have been completed,
its other end is either buried or never existed. The other two entrances are both cuttings,
one running north east - this appears to be the early exit route to the dressing shed(s) -
while the other runs north onto small tips. Both can be seen in Pic 1 entering the pit,
which has been worked deeper than their levels.
My notes
describe the pit as 'long abandoned and in poor state' - certainly it has not been worked in over a century -
and i was unable to enter the adit because of deep water within.
* Page 84 |
![* [Pic 2] Bwlch Ddeilior Quarry - Nearby buildings (May 1990) *](gfxpics02/bwlch-ddeilior-90-02.jpg)
[Pic 2] Bwlch Ddeilior Quarry - Nearby buildings (May 1990)
Close to the (north east running)
cutting entrance are these building remains - see Pic 2 above - all of which are even more ruinous since
this photo was taken. As to the possible vestiges of a wheelpit (stated above) i
couldn't say - though the terrain around does supports such a theory.
Notes: The grid co-ordinates for Bwlch Ddeilior are; SH557508 |
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