Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Kennedy
You must have had big hobnail boots on Bob, youve wrecked the place!  |
Yes I've clumped on the hills about there many times. The two best known hills are Moelwyn Mawr and Cnicht, sometimes called the Matterhorn of Wales. These are literally an abandoned village in the vast slate mine workings above the village of Tanygrisiau on the outskirts of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Once a mighty slate mining area.
All the hills you see are riddled with tunnels and vast caverns from centuries of slate mining. I've been down in quite a few of them in the past, but most are gated off now.
It was quite a spooky place at night (and I'm not superstitious in any way) because once all of this was a thriving industry. Those pillars you can see were an elevated railway from one of the mines, and the building upper right with trees was the local chapel.
It's really quite strange wandering through the ruins of a once thriving community.
In some ways something us ex-seafarers can relate to.